My Ideal Vs. My Reality

Ideal: My kids would wake up in a happy mood at 7:00. Get their own breakfast, eat it by themselves within 5 minutes without needing bribes, get dressed on their own without me begging, and brush their teeth without whining. I'd have time to pack everyone's things for the day including my own. We'd all get into the car in 3 minutes flat by 7:30 a.m. and have a pleasant drive to school without anyone having to go potty and no traffic. I'd walk into the office 15 minutes early with a smile on my face genuinely asking everyone how they are doing.


My Reality: Kids wake up at 7:00 a.m. whiny and Noah wet the bed. I have to beg them and chase them down to get them to eat, get dressed, brush their teeth, do their hair and carry their luggage out the door. I am flustered by all the begging and whining that I forget to feed myself, make my lunch, take something out for dinner, and put my shoes on. I bribe the kids to get into the car at 7:43 a.m. We are late. We get to the freeway and there is a ton of traffic. Noah whines and lets me know that he does not like traffic. 10 minutes into the traffic, Maia informs me that her tummy hurts which usually translates to, "I have to go poop." I tell her that I will take her potty as soon as we get there. I start to gag from the stress of being stuck in traffic with 1 toddler that has to poop and 1 toddler that is whining about the traffic. We finally get out of the traffic and off the freeway and Maia starts to cry over her tummy hurting. As I look in the rear view mirror I notice that she looks a little pale and before I can process the meaning of that, she pukes all over herself and her car seat. It smells. I gag. Noah panics. I ask if she has to throw up more and throw her a grocery bag that happened to be in my purse. She cries. Did I mention it's raining and I have no umbrella? We make it to the school parking lot and I search the car for my spare wipees that I leave in the car for situations such as these. They are nowhere to be found. I call Ricky to yell at him for taking the wipees out and tell him how stressed out I am (I needed to take out my frustration on someone...don't judge me). I throw Noah's nap time blanket over my head and attempt to remove Maia from her vomit covered seat and clothes. I dress her in the spare outfit I packed, a Summer dress in which she will freeze on this rainy day. Perfect. Meanwhile, Noah is crying because his nap time blanket is getting all wet from the rain. We finally get everyone cleaned up and we run to drop Noah off at his classroom. He is late. When I drop Maia off at her classroom, she screams and cries and begs me not to go. I start to wonder if maybe she has the flu. But, I have no other options. I have to leave her. I need to go to work. As I make my way to the office, I hold back tears while gagging from the stress. I walk into the office late and am so consumed by my crazy morning that I don't even notice everyone saying hi to me. I feel like a horrible person, a horrible mom, and a horrible employee.

Yup, this is my reality. Someday, I will laugh about all this chaos...

P.S. Maia did not have the flu. She was just carsick. Today on our drive I left the windows open the whole time to save us from another vomit incident. I didn't care that it was raining. I told the kids that it was their bath for the day. I think they thought I was crazy!