Morning Madness.

Both kids put extra effort into being extremely difficult this morning.  After dragging them out of bed fifteen minutes late, they both sat around the island in the kitchen with their eyes half opened and their bed head in full force.  I asked what they would like for breakfast and received the following responses:

Mae:  "Spiders."
Kyler:  "Buffalo."

And they thought they were so funny.  What they were unaware of is that I finally got an adequate amount of sleep last night and I was prepared to deal with their shenanigans in the calmest way I know how, which happens to be 'walking away from the situation'.  So I informed them that we were fresh out of spiders and buffalo and it looks like they would be in charge of making their own breakfast...then I walked away.  They were not laughing anymore.  But what I didn't know is that I was silently posing a challenge for them and they were more than up for it.  Their morning goal was now to find my breaking point before the school bus arrived.

Mae decided that since I was on breakfast-making strike, she would make her own breakfast as advised, but she would not touch the floor while doing so.  She created quite the ear-splitting racket as she danced along the counter tops and balanced her way across swivel chairs.  I remained steady and calm, while silently fearing that we would be making an early-morning trip to the ER.

Next up: getting dressed.  Just the two simple words, "Get dressed," have been known to throw Mae into an instantaneous clothing meltdown, complete with yelling, tears and sometimes violence (all her, none me).  She once ripped her shirt completely in half while angrily taking it off.  She's like the Hulk, but miniature and less green.  Nearly every morning, I hear, "Nothing fits, nothing matches and everything is STUPID."  But today she has new pants to wear so she decided to skip the clothing meltdown and trade it instead for...

Shoes.  Cowgirl boots don't match jogging pants.  But she wanted to wear her boots so bad.  But she wanted to wear her new pants so bad.  But...the boots.  The pants.  Boots.  Pants.  She looked from one to the other, back and forth for quite a while.  She finally decided on sandals.  But not just any sandals would do...they had to be Kyler's sandals.  Except Kyler already had said sandals in his hands and was ready to put them on, so Mae just ripped them right out of his hands and transferred them onto her feet, thus causing war.  I decided I should intervene as we had exactly three minutes to be out the door, so I bravely stepped right into the middle of the battlefield and explained to Mae that tennis shoes go good with jogging pants and, "Look!  Your shoes even match your pants!"  The house immediately calmed until I looked toward Kyler and saw something very, very painful.  While looking me directly in the eye and with a smile on his face, he slipped his sandals on his already socked feet.  And he wasn't wearing just any socks...they were camouflaged socks.  I am eight-hundred percent certain that he did this just to see if he could break me.  But I was not going down with less than three minutes left.  I turned away from him and with a quiver in my voice, said, "Go give your Dad a hug and kiss." 

As we headed out the door, Mae looked at me and said, "Library books."  Apparently, since I am the one who brought the books into the house and put them away, I was expected to know where I put them.  What nonsense.  I ran back into the house and searched frantically for the books.  One was on top of the piano bench, one was on Mae's desk and one was in her toy box.  That is NOT where I had put them.

We made it to the bus stop in time to see a big, yellow spot coming down the road toward us.  I turned the Jeep around and headed back down the driveway, but as I looked into my rearview mirror, I once again caught sight of Kyler's socked and sandaled feet.  And that's the image that will stay with me for the remainder of the day.  "Social suicide," I've warned him before.  But he seems to think that comfort is more important than impressing people.  Pffft.