a confession

Before I was a mom...I would look at other kids...and think...

"My kid will never do THAT."
"I will never parent like THAT."
"I will never struggle in this area."

and more specifically...

"My kid will NEVER be late to school."

Well...I confess that the following facts have left me struggling to get it together. To um...keep my cheese on my cracker. :)

Bootie-whipping facts:

1. A house without a mom/wife is not the same a house with one. I am paying for my travels.

2. Sick kids make everything hard. Behavior, cleaning, parenting. All of it.

3. The clock at Addy's school is five minutes fast. Not fast from where I set my clocks at home...but fast from my cell phone clock...which is set by a tower...which I think is probably set by some national atomic clock. So...her schools clock is really off. I know I should have accepted this fact by now...it is March. But I am only now accepting it. And now have a convinced Neal this is true.

4. Five minutes is ALOT when you are driving 9 miles to the next town for school...and then drive through 2 school zones when you get there.

5. The school lunch program has made some policy changes the outcome of "Pete's Pak." Pete's Pak is a sack lunch alternative to the hot lunch. Addy loves to get this when she doesn't want "Beef Noodleroni"...of whatever lovely item the hot lunch might be. A lunch total for hot lunch vs. pete's pak is now taken in the first few minutes of the school day...and if you miss that tally...you don't get a Pete's Pak...which means you have to eat the hot lunch. (Remember...spring break just ended and Addy missed the first two days of this week.) I don't think the school notified parents of the new method for P.P.

And tell that to the big kids who take the P.P. even if they didn't order it! FOR THE LOVE!

And I think that the tally gets taken as the kids come in the room...not actually after the bell has rung. But whatever.

6. Can you imagine the drama of the day when Addy may or may not have (I really don't think we were late! I was supposed to meet my mom that morning at 8...and I did!) not been there for the newly crucial lunch tally on Thursday? I heard about it after school...and just figured it was a mistake...not realizing the new policy. I think before they just made a bunch of P.P's.

7. Addy cried the entire 9 miles to school on Friday afraid we weren't going to make it in time to get her P.P. request in.

8. I had to drag her into school. I had to talk to her teacher with a puffy-red-eyed sniffling girl next to me. Her teacher was pretty nice...but I think was blaming ME for not getting her there on time that day. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!

March kicked my bootie...and I'm really struggling. I'm not looking forward to Monday...where I have to pretend that school starts at 7:50 to make sure we are there on time. That's silly. And then...if you are picking up my kid...make sure to arrive at 3:10...not 3:15 like it states in the handbook.

WHATEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm grumpy and I need an attitude adjustment. Sigh...I'm working on it!