My life as a work of literature...

Take your pick -- The Tale of Two Age Groups -- It is the best of times, it is the worst of times.... or perhaps Much Ado About Nothing, Of course we could just pick movies, too One Flew over the CooCoo's Nest, The Shining comes to mind because I've had REDRUM on the brain -- if you haven't figured it out yet, school has started. My mornings are no longer my own. Yesterday wasn't too bad, only Hannah had to get off to school. Of course, the morning met its fair share of mishaps. The last of the milk had been used Tuesday evening -- a rare occurrence in our house as it is because I HATE to run out of milk. No problem, I'll send Jason down to get milk in the morning before Hannah has breakfast and all will be well with the world -- not counting on the fact that the newly purchased gallon of milk would already be sour before we even opened it. "I'll just make toast," Hannah said, disappointment dripping from every word. While I was enjoying one more peaceful cup of coffee on the porch (I had wisely elected to take the day off to get Hannah off to school) she emerges from the house "Someone turned the toaster up and my toast is burnt! I'll just have dry cereal." Could be worse, I thought. You could have poured the sour milk on the last of the cereal and then you wouldn't have the option of dry cereal. At any rate, the rest of the morning went without further major incident and the first day of school was complete for the elementary schoolers.

Let us proceed to day two, or day one for the Jr. High kids and day one of mom trying to get everyone where they need to go and make it to the train on time. UGH!!!

Sharing the bathroom with a teenage girl -- not fun. Trying to get five people up, fed, dressed and out the door on time, not fun, dealing with Hannah and all her quirks -- really not fun.
There was an incident with the shoe laces that had me using words that are most often reserved for sailors (Hannah); there was the primping and primping and primping (Mallorie) that kept me from the much coveted bathroom and then there is the hermit (Jason) who gets up first, gets ready and eats breakfast then retires to his room to watch the news only to emerge five minutes before he thinks we should leave and then say as we pull in to the school 20 minutes before they have to be in their first class "Mom, can we try to get here a little earlier tomorrow?" He has a timetable all his own, which doesn't take in to consideration that there are three females trying to prepare themselves to face the day and one baby who needs to be gotten ready and all of this is supposed to happen before 7:30 in the morning.

Summer is definitely over and no matter how much I enjoy the routine of the school year getting back into the habit of getting 5/6 of our family out the door first thing in the morning has challenges all its own that sometimes make me feel we could be the subject of either a comedy or a horror movie -- perhaps a public service announcement stressing the importance of multiple bathrooms or warning that no matter how cute babies and toddlers are -- they become teenagers one day. The only thing to look forward to with teenagers is that one day they become young adults and all your hard work with them will hopefully pay off.