Crazy Heart Mama

There’s this giant leap of faith involved in placing your kindergartener on an empty school bus at 6:52 a.m. in the pouring rain while it’s still dark outside with a driver only known as Mr. Jack.

Can we talk about that pickup time for just a minute? 6:52 a.m. Ugh. I needed a nap by ten o’clock today.

When I woke Rowan up this morning at 6:15 a.m., and he began to cry, “I didn’t get enough rest,” I felt like this whole riding-the-bus thing might be an exercise in cruel and unusual punishment. I felt cruel and I felt punished. Rowan affirmed this when he told me as I was pulling his clothes onto his limp body that he only felt SADNESS and that he could not find his JOY while it was still dark outside.

(He just watched Inside Out last night, so he had a pretty good grip on all his big feelings this morning.)

“Really?” I asked. “Me too.”

Then I remembered seeing the video on Facebook of the little boy who walks two-and-a-half hours to school in Guatemala ONE WAY. How has he not been eaten by a Panther? Or had his lunch stolen by Banditos? That’s some freaking commitment right there, and it’s a lot stronger stuff than I’m made of…or my kids for that matter. Kevin could probably do it, but then we’d all have to hear about it…maybe more than once.

After Rowan was safely–I use that word loosely–on the bus, I was able to get the other two boys moving this morning. You’d think starting ninth grade and seventh grade, they’d be easier. Your thinking would be wrong.

Liam’s pretty much a self-starter, but Colman is like the nursery rhyme, “My son, John, one shoe off and one shoe on…”

(Kevin is convinced that poor John suffered from ADHD. I think that’s exactly what was wrong with poor John.)

Those boys were ready with five minutes to spare, so I ran upstairs to put on my clothes for work. And while I was getting dressed, I received a phone call from Liam who was DOWNSTAIRS.

“Mom?”

“Yeah?”

“Uh, Teddy crapped in the house.”

(Teddy is our one-year-old labradoodle.)

“Where?” I asked.

“In the living room.”

“Weren’t you just sitting in there?”

“Yeah.”

“So he crapped right in front of you?”

“Pretty much, but, hey, I gotta go. I think I hear the bus.”

Of course he did. God forbid his gag reflex get a workout first thing in the morning.

And you know what? I went downstairs and cleaned it up and sent my boys off to have a great day.

Then my friend called to say when she took lunch to her son at the high school for his first day, she talked to the boys and they were doing great. Except Liam had his lunch stolen. He wasn’t too upset, kind of laughed it off as such a “freshman thing to happen,” but that’s karma right there.

(Except she went and bought him a Chick-fil-a because she is one of the nicest people on the planet, so Liam’s karma must not be too bad.)

You’ve got to put positive energy out in this universe to get good things back!

I hope his lunch was stolen by Banditos. Now, THAT would be interesting.