Mad Rush

Twenty years from now, I hope my children won’t remember what I was like between 8 and 9 a.m. This is the hour of the day when I morph into the maniac that is hell-bent on getting them ready for school – and getting them to school on time.

I’m in my fifth year of this mad rush – and we’re getting marginally better at it. I seem to be yelling a tiny bit less and we haven’t been late this year…yet. We put in an awful two years to get to this point, though. One morning in particular comes to mind. I had already put out Rebecca and Ryan’s clothes for the day, and Sarah was still asleep. I told the kids to get dressed while I ran upstairs for a shower. After twenty minutes I came downstairs to find that instead of getting dressed, the kids had gone into the basement and opened up a box of holiday stuff. This was apparent to me because Ryan was running around the house in his underwear and a pair of antennae-like shamrocks on his head. You know the kind…they’re attached to a head-band by springs and they bounce when you move around. I completely lost it, though it seems funny now. I can still remember how he looked when he saw me – he stopped running and was standing statue-still – except for the shamrocks bouncing up and down over his head.

To make matters worse, I was nagging at the kids so loudly that I didn’t hear a knock at the front door. As I was turning to give one of the kids the ‘hairy eyeball’ my gaze, instead, met the eyes of my neighbour, Sean. I think I might even have been pointing at him, too. I know…it was shameful to be giving threatening looks to my kids, and possibly even more embarrassing to get caught by another adult. It took me a few days before I could look Sean in the eye again.

According to my favourite parenting guru, Barbara Coloroso, nagging doesn’t work. Instead, I should let the kids feel the effects of the natural consequence of being late for school. I wonder what the principal does to kids that are consistently late. I’m sure he wouldn’t yell…and he’s probably above giving dirty looks, too. (Although I’m secretly curious how he gets his own kids to school on time.) Maybe someday I'll let him handle this little problem. But, that will have to wait until the day that I stop caring what everyone would think of ME if my kids are late for school…