just another morning at the Cracker Factory |
Grrrrr. It’s now 9:17 a.m. I had the morning from somewhere not very nice. My morning was sort of exactly but not quite like having oral surgery. You have to get through it no matter what, and you don’t want to about five minutes into it. Like Pirate Girl, I am going to identify the kidlets according to descriptive names, cause I don’t want to use their real names. I know, some of you already know their names. But, you know. The oldest girl, age 8, we have custody of is going to be Pint. The next granddaughter we do not have custody of, age 6, is ¾ Pint. (you do see where this is going). The next one down, we do have custody of, age 5, Half Pint. And the baby (8 months) we do not have custody of, Quarter Pint.) All but ¾ pint are from one mother, my 2nd daughter. ¾ pint belongs to my oldest daughter and her husband, she is a nurse and he is a intelligence cop in the Air Force. They both work evening turn, (for those of you east coast impaired, this means the 3 – 11 shift or thereabouts). Pint got up on time, and immediately started crying her belly hurt. She was hungry. She was hungry because she did not eat all her supper last night, and therefore, mean grandmother that I am, I did not allow her to have her usual snack before bed. There was a point last night where she did tell me that: (my answers are in parenthesis) You are ruining my life. (Well good. You are only 8, it’s best you find out now.) You are mean. ( I know. I try every day to be meaner. How am I doing?) I hate you. ( I love you.) I can’t believe you would send your granddaughter to bed without feeding her. (Believe it. Trust me. Believe it. Next time eat your dinner.) I am leaving tomorrow. (yes, for school.) You are ruining my life. (This too shall pass.) I want a nice grandmother. (I’ll put an ad in the bargain hunter.) Can I at least have a glass of water or is this like a prison. (This is worse than prison. You have NO rights here at all.) Will you at least fluff my pillow? (of course I will fluff your pillow.) Can I please have a drink? (Well, you asked nicely but no.) I want my snack. (okay, what are you giving up tomorrow for it? TV. Computer? Karate?) Nevermind. (that’s what I thought, good night, I love you.) She was genuinely hungry this morning, and asked me to please hurry and feed her, which I did. Then, I took Monster outside. We ran out of batteries for his shock collar. He knows this. He did his usual gallumping down the stairs, falling and sliding. He went over to the tractor to do his morning anointing of the wheels. I said “the baby is crying and I don’t have time for you to be a horse today. Hurry up.” He bolted. He grazed. He looked around like it was the first time he had ever been outside. I grabbed his collar and dragged him toward the stairs. He broke away and ran. I chased him, coffee cup in hand (I have the ability to do just about anything in the world without spilling my coffee). I was yelling at him telling him to come here so I could kill him. For some reason, he did not run right over to be put to death??? I grabbed him again. Led him to the door, telling him the whole time that I had Pint inside, screaming that her belly hurt while she was trying to eat. I could still hear her cause I have the patio door open. That was bad planning on my part. At least if I had kept it closed I wouldn’t have had to listen whilst outside… Finally, on the fifth try, I got him to come inside. The Chihuahua wanted her turn to go out. I grumbled, “get out of my way and just go pee on the floor somewhere, I don’t have time for you this morning..” Cause now it is 10 minutes to 8, the bus arrives at 8:34 and Half Pint isn’t even out of bed yet. Back into the house, and no, I haven’t even gotten to pee yet. Or feed the kittens. (this comes into play shortly). Wake the baby up. Yes, by sticking my head into her room and saying GET UP. I know. Sigh. Sometimes, I am challenged. Normally, I like to creep into their rooms, cover them with little kisses, tickle them and wake them up gently. Today. Was not one of those days. My stupid DVR keeps moving me from the morning news to “How it’s made”. I know it’s my fault cause I told it to tape the show, but really. It’s morning, it should know I need my news. Half Pint gets up. I tell her to pee. The reason I have to tell her, is that genetically, she is part camel. She can go two days without urinating. And will, if not made to pee. When she was a baby, I was frantically calling the Dr because she would only have like one wet diaper a day. If that. I was always afraid she was dehydrated, even though she ate like a pig. She never was dehydrated. She just doesn’t pee often. She comes out, I fix her a bowl of cereal, she starts eating and one of the kittens crawls up her uncovered leg and scratches her trying to get to the milk in her bowl of cereal. She is now screaming. Pint is still doubled over with pain. Now. Remember she is 8. I am not going to 911 my brain over an 8 year old crying with pain. I tell her to go to the bathroom. Her stomach hurts because she needs to, well, poop. And she doesn’t like salad, fruits, vegetables or fiber. She, like every other kid, prefers Little Debbie snack cakes and chocolate milk to real food. I tell her to sit, and let it happen. She wails the entire time in the bathroom. She cannot go. I tell her fine. You can stay home sick, but no TV and no computer. If you are sick, you are sick and will stay in bed. She allows how she believes she can get through the day at school, but says her stomach really does hurt. I go and get Half Pint an outfit for school. She doesn’t like it. Now, I usually don’t have that problem with Half Pint. I have that particular problem with Pint, who I make pick out her outfit the night before, and I have to approve it as she usually will pick something like orange striped shorts with a blue Adidas shirt. I pick a cute little plaid Care Bear skirt with a cute little Care Bear shirt. I bring them in. She tells me flatly. “I hate that skirt.” I say, “how can you hate a skirt you have never worn?” She says “I am not wearing that.” Back to the closet I go. Grab a pair of white capri’s and a green Hello Kitty shirt. Put them on her. Tell her to go get her shoes. I already have her socks. She comes back with her Bobby Jack flip flops. I give up. Pint is still whining about her stomach. I ask if she wants a Tums. She says yes. I go to get them, I left them on the counter in the kitchen. They are not there. I whip into the bedroom which has the door closed. The door is closed because Monster drools. Constantly. He is a wet mouth dog. And, it’s gross. And he likes to bug the girls. And if he gets drool on them, they totally tweak, which I do not need in the morning. So, after he goes outside in the morning, he goes straight into the bedroom with DH and I shut the door till the girls get on the bus. He gets out as soon as I open the door. It is now 8:29 a.m. The girls are dressed. Lunch is made, but honestly I have absolutely no clue at this time what I put in their lunches. Couldn’t tell you if my life depended on it. I know at some point during the hour of screaming, hysterics and belly aches I did, in fact, make lunches. There was a mess on the counter when I came back in. They had lunch boxes, as it were, in their book bags. But, the memory is gone. He gallumps out of the bedroom. They both start screaming….”Get away from me or you will slime me. MEEEEEMMMMAAAAWWWWWW, get him away from me.” ::sigh::: I run into the bedroom, grab the Tums and scream at the dog, okay, rather loudly. Because DH is sound asleep in the bed, and I see it. Now, I am angry that he gets to sleep while I have to go through this. Well, the only reason that he gets to sleep is that I let him, but right now, that doesn’t matter. TITAN ! GET BACK IN HERE RIGHT NOW. Oh yeah. Like that is gonna work on that dog. I go and grab him and jerk him into the bedroom by his collar. While that is happening the lid is coming off the Tums jar and sprinkling Assorted Berry Flavor Tums all over the carpet. The lid breaks and falls. DH wakes up….going the, you know, man just waking up noise? “Whaaaa. Huhhh? What?” I just growl. Look on the floor. Tell the dog to eat the tums and I hope he dies from them. Slam the door right in the middle of DH asking what is wrong. Shake two Tums out. Give them to Pint. Tell them let’s go. The bus will be her in a second. Half Pint says “The bus is imminent!” She learned what Imminent means from the commercial about that new movie that is about Noah’s Ark. The one that followed the movie with Jim Carrey, Almighty something or other. She is very proud of knowing what the word imminent means. I say, “yes honey, the bus is imminent, now let’s go.” They argue briefly who gets to go out the door first. I reach around them and open the door and go first, thereby ending that argument. We walk to the end of the driveway as the bus pulls up. I realize that you can see Half Pints color of underwear through the white capri’s. :::sigh::: |