Late, Late, Late

I hate being late. Before I had kids, I was almost never late. In fact, I was almost always early, probably to the annoyance of more than one hostess.

A baby changes everything. That’s saying, right? Well, Alyssa was five days old when my family threw us a baby shower. We were a half hour late to our own baby shower. I was near tears from the stress/trauma of it all.

I’ve lightened up a bit over the years. I’ve also learned a bit of time management. A bit, I said.

This morning, though, I didn’t manage very well. The alarm went off at the usual time of 5:50am. I almost got up then, but instead, hit the snooze. Olivia woke up three minutes later and as I picked her up I asked her if she wanted to just go in and take a bath or if she wanted to snuggle with me in my bed for a few minutes.

She buried her face in my neck and muttered, “Snuggle.”

So snuggle we did, through two more snoozes. We snuggled so thoroughly that she fell back to sleep and I slipped out of bed at 6:12 to shower.

Two minutes later, she was in the bathroom, looking all bed-headed and still sleepy. I took off her pull-up and she sat in front of the heat. I turned on the shower and she declared, “I want to take a bath.”

I’d told her the day before when she asked at a ridiculously late time that she could take one this morning. So I turned off my shower and started filling the tub for her. When her tub had enough water, I showered. By this point, I knew we were a little behind the schedule, but nothing we couldn’t make up.

Alyssa got up at 6:40 and joined Olivia in the tub. At 6:55, I declared they had to get out of the tub right this minute because we were on the verge of being late enough that we wouldn’t be able to make up the time.

I dried O’s hair while A got dressed. I then towel dried A’s hair and pulled it into a braid, hoping to fool Tom into thinking we were further ahead in our morning prep than we actually were.

We got downstairs for breakfast by 7:10. We’re usually down there by 6:50. Olivia was sucking her thumb and tugging her hair at this point, a great indication that she’s on the verge of starvation. She plowed through her blueberry waffle and Alyssa nibbled at her decrusted toast.

I packed Alyssa’s lunch while Tom kept watch over the breakfast. He was just getting up to toast O another waffle at 7:20 when I went upstairs to finish my own morning routine. I returned at 7:25 to the realization that I had forgotten to pack my own lunch as I was packing A’s. She was brushing her teach and Olivia was eating her second waffle heartily.

I gathered O’s coat, backpack, shoes and hat in front of the door and made sure A knew where all her things were and I left for work only three minutes behind schedule.

Then I got behind a m-f’ing semi truck that took five freaking miles to get up to the speed of a mere 40 miles per hour. It took him another five miles to gather enough momentum to drive 50 miles.

No, I wasn’t late to work but it was a close call.

Tom informed me that for all my own frustrations with running late this morning, he bore the brunt of it. The girls’ bus comes anytime between 7:35 and 7:45. This morning? She was on the early side, pulling up in front of the house at 7:36. Olivia had just finished her waffle, got her shoes, coat and backpack on when they saw the bus at the corner. No tooth brushing for her this morning.

Sigh.

I told Tom we would be sure to brush her teeth even more strenuously tonight before bed to make up for it.

I also told him that hey, at least we know she wasn’t heading off to school hungry.

I don’t think he appreciated my bright and sunny outlook on this morning’s festivities. And he calls himself a morning person.