It's all in a day, Part 1

I wake up to a number of different things on any given day. Sometimes it's my husband wanting to know where the clean socks are. Sometimes it's my son creeping out of his newly acquired "big girl bed" (don't ask). Sometimes it's my baby daughter fussing around in her crib because she's peed through her onesie and sleeper. Sometimes it's my eldest child, age 3 for the record, who crawls up to my bed and purrs. It's usually somewhere between 6:00 - 6:30 when someone chooses, or is awarded the position of ringleader for that day.

Breakfast. 22 month old Julian always wants oatmeal, which he affectionately calls it either o-mote, or eatmeal. I think he graduated from o-mote to eatmeal, actually. So, he's getting there. Julian gets his eatmeal. Adrienne gets her chocolate cereal (Cocoa Pebbles) with milk in it, she requests. Then, as she is eating her chocolate cereal, she asks, "Is this breakfast or dinner?" She asks this because she knows that after dinner, if you eat well, you get dessert. Of course you would eat well, Adri, it's chocolate for breakfast. No chance at dessert after this meal, sweetie. And as for baby Izzy, well, she gets her bottle.

Julian screams at the top of his lungs and Adrienne cries because it hurts her ears. I say, "IGNORE" to Adrienne, and Julian screams louder. They sit together at the table and throw Fruit Loops at each other (Julian gets Fruit Loops while his eatmeal is cooling.) By the end of breakfast, the kitchen floor is littered with smashed Fruit Loops, lumps of eatmeal and drippy sippys. Julian has red burns on his chin from the eatmeal, Adrienne has chocolate milk down the front of her shirt, and Izzy has puked on herself, or me. So we change. We all change.

Somewhere in there, I try to get my coffee. And when I do, and feel sick and jittery because I haven't eaten, I throw two frozen waffles in the toaster. And it's 7:30 a.m.