Wednesday, January 6, 2010

The First Monday Morning of 2010

5:05 a.m.--Thad’s alarm goes off. Mommy wakes up. Mommy falls back to sleep.

5:57:--Thad leaves for the airport. Thad is flying to Las Vegas for work. Thad will not be home until Friday night...after bedtime.

7:08--Drew wakes up, yelling, “Mommy, I need you.”

7:15--Blair wakes up, yelling, “Mommymommymommymommymommymommy,” as if she was in her bed, and mommy was on the top of the Empire State Building.

7:16--Mommy turns on Blue Clues.

7:17 to 8:43--Mommy makes breakfast (for 2-year-old Drew, a bowl of rainbow Cheerios; for 4-year-old Blair, half a pancake, three bites of mommy’s peanut-butter-toast, a fruit roll-up, chocolate milk, pink lemonade, and water in her “special snowman cup”); mommy dresses children; mommy writes out enormous check for daycare; mommy packs two lunches (for Drew, chicken nuggets; for Blair, as requested, Lipton cup-o-soup with extra-wide noodles, one white chocolate-covered-mini-pretzel, one brown chocolate-covered-mini pretzel, apple sauce in a cup with a red top, and apple juice “not watered down”).

8:44--Blair runs into the kitchen yelling, “Drew locked herself in the bathroom!” Mommy charges to the bathroom to find that Drew has, in fact, locked herself in the bathroom. Mommy sprints to find a skinny Philip’s head-screwdriver to push through the hole in the doorknob that’s used for unlocking doors in emergencies. The hole in the doorknob that’s used for unlocking doors in emergencies does not work. Drew starts to cry. Mommy whispers through the door, “Drew, honey, turn the knob. Turn the knob until the button pops.” Drew tries. Nothing happens. Mommy remembers that it’s not a push-button lock. Mommy panics. Mommy slams the right side of her body into the door. Drew screams. Blair stares at mommy, clearly thinking, “Mommy, why don’t you just unscrew the doorknob?” Mommy feels silly. Mommy grabs the screwdriver and begins to unscrew the doorknob. Blair sits down on the floor next to mommy’s feet and begins to flip through a pile of photos she found on the nightstand next to mommy’s bed. She looks up and says, "Look at this one, mommy! It's me and you on the bike! Look mommy! It's Drew in her bumblebee costume." Mommy says, "Blair, please be quiet." Blair says, “Mommy! Here we are at Nana’s in the pool!” Mommy, finally, gets the doorknob unscrewed. When mommy pushes inside part of the knob through, Drew starts to scream louder, then picks up the knob and proceeds to push it back into the hole on the door. Mommy yells, “Noooooooooo!” Mommy pushes the knob through the door again. Drew ignores it. The door still will not open. Drew peers at Mommy though the doorknob hole. She is crying so hard that she’s no longer making sound. Blair says, "Look mommy! It's me and Drew on a carousel!" Mommy shouts, “Shuuuuuuuuut uuuuuuup!” Blair starts to cry, then runs to hide on the other side of the bed. Mommy knows she should feel bad, but doesn’t. Mommy shoves the screwdriver into the hole and jams it around until the locking mechanism breaks in half. Mommy opens the door. Drew crawls out as if she has just been released from a concentration camp. Blair calls mommy an “idiot.”

9:01--Mommy takes Drew and Blair to daycare. Mommy leaves them there.



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9 comments:

  1. Holy cow, what a funny story. And guess what? Henry and his buddy locked themselves in my bathroom too, though we actually had to call the fire dept (who arrived in an actual firetruck). I can so relate to your "SHUUUUTTT UUUUUUUP!!!" Henry talks non-stop as it is, but the running commentary is a serious sanity-tester when I'm trying to, say, calm my screaming toddler or carry six grocery bags up the steps or some other taxing task. Great post.

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  2. And that, my dear friend, is why my two bright daughters no longer HAVE a doorknob....really. Hope Tuesday was better!

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  3. Great post, Vicki. I guess I need to break the locks before my 1.5 year old figures out how to lock himself in. That probably gives me a couple weeks...

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  4. Great story - I could see it all unfolding...

    ---Jamgiver

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  5. Oh, Vick.

    Because of a very similar scenario with the twins (ok, perhaps a series of scenarios), we now have:

    1) a non-locking knob on the door to their bathroom

    2) no knob at ALL on their bedroom door

    3) no DOOR at all to their playroom

    Good times.

    xoxo, jenn.

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  6. Well, I hope your kids don't ever get the chance to read the part about how you don't care what you say to them. You took them to day care to get rid of them so you could post this? How is this funny?

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  7. Anonymous is clearly in need of a sense of humor. My keen insight tells me that Anonymous should probably spend less time criticizing others and more time criticizing Anonymous. But what do I know, I'm drunk.

    Love your post, as always. (Love your kids too.)

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  8. Sally--I'm surprised the boys didn't lock themselves in again, JUST to have the firetruck come back!

    Anonymous at 9:48--
    1. At the time, NOTHING about this was funny.
    2. I dropped the girls off at daycare, like I do EVERY day, so I could go to work (not to "get rid of them"). I wrote the post two days later.
    3. I'm sure that, someday, my kids will read everything I write about being their mom. And, when they read this, they'll read that I knew I should have felt bad about yelling, but didn't. They'll also know that I made them 10 different things for a single breakfast because they asked for it, that I rode bikes with them, that I took them on carousel rides, and that I practically broke down a door with my body to get them out of a locked bathroom. The bottom line: I would never, EVER, let my daughters grow up to believe that being a mother was only "carousels," and never "shut ups." Because that would be a lie.

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  9. I love your honesty. That's why you continue to be my hero. Thanks, Vicki!

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