Morning Rush

Every one blogs at least once, if not over and over, about having "one of THOSE days" - so this is mine for today. This morning was one of THOSE mornings, and posting it has been on my mind since just after it started probably.

We slept later than we normally like, not getting into the shower until 6:35 - that gives us about one hour before I like to be on the road, taking the kids to school. Vicki took her shower first and started getting dressed, and I followed, drying off quicker and getting downstairs to let the dog out and start the kitchen assembly line to breakfast, etc. It was the "breakfast, etc" that through me off kilter - shouldn't have, but I think we're still catching up on sleep from last week and the weekend's time change, so cut us some slack. I started coffee, pulled pop-tarts out for the kids, and was having a pleasant time as everyone kind've made their way towards the day. No big, until "breakfast, etc" ...

At 7:25, I realized the "etc" part would include fixing lunches - that's normally something I just do, and it snuck up on me when I forgot. So I'm throwing in pizza and fruit snacks when my son asks to get on the PC. The problem isn't that he wanted to do something fun and "important", but that in ten minutes I wanted to be gone and sometimes, "It's time to go, get off the PC" is met with resistance. No problem, get on the computer, but when it's time to go, no arguing. "Ok, Dad" - until I told him to get off the PC. We handled it well, a little disagreement about why getting on the road was more important than setting the PC's screensaver.

When Trace finally came outside, he'd left his backpack and jacket inside. No big, made him go back in. I'd remembered lunches, everyone was shod, and we were getting out on time. Whew. Driving in to school, both kids are laughing to the Spongebob CD (it's only 15 minutes to their school, praise Jesus), when we hit a pothole and the CD skipped. "Dad, is it going to skip every time we hit a bump?" - "Yes, son, it just does that" - "Aww, man (whine whine whine)" - "It's ok, it happens all the time - only on these bumps on this road every morning."

A little further down the road, and this question/answer came up: "Dad, is it going to skip like that when I put it in the PC later?" - "No, son, only when we're driving on bumpy roads, and it's not making a skip permanent on the CD. The only way it would skip on the PC is if the computer was driving down this road taking you guys to school" - and that was the funniest thing he'd heard all morning. Both kids laughed and laughed, and I remembered the "etc" of "breakfast, etc" - our son didn't get his morning meds before school. Let me just say that this is not a good thing and makes for much stress and consternation in the land.

My wife's very good idea was to get to school, visit the school nurse, and get the morning's dosage from her. Very good choice, everyone was happy, on their way to class and to work. All was god with the world, and both kids had really been good and conversational all the way in - that whole whiney-to-laughing thing had been a little too extreme, fortunately, and had made me remember what we'd forgotten earlier. I changed the radio to XM - no more Spongebob, praise Jesus - had a pleasant conversation with my wife detailing the morning, sipped coffee and made my way the rest of my 25 mile commute.

I parked in the lot, thinking as I was walking in that I was going to post on my blog about what turned out to be laughable instead of traumatic. Got in the building, headed to my cubicle on the third floor, sat down, turned on my desk fan and pulled off the page on my Movie-Per-Day desk calendar. I put my coffee mug on the desk, reached down into my bag to get my laptop to boot-up, check email, blog this whole morning, and get busy with the day - and found that there was no laptop in my bag. The other "etc" in "breakfast, etc" was that I needed to unplug my laptop at home, take it off the dining room chair and place it in my bag to go to work with me. When all of your work is on the machine, this is important - and it was at home, in the kitchen, waiting to be used. I've forgotten it before, usually just after dropping off the kids, realizing I'd left my whole bag at home. But this was the first time I'd had my bag, had everything else - notebook, papers, forms and such - and left the laptop at home.

So now, I've driven home, feeling like an idiot, laughing about it, and am now working today from the kitchen table again. One one-hour commute per day is enough. And it's already been one of THOSE mornings.