I don't know why I'm not totally crazy yet.  I should be.  Maybe I am crazy and nobody I know is sane enough to tell me I'm crazy.   The other day at work I heard a gentleman co-worker remark about how frustrated he was.  It seems he had gotten behind a tractor and he'd had to drive ten miles an hour all the way to work.  I bit my bottom lip and counted to ten, then twenty, when I couldn't contain it any longer I burst out,  "You think that's frustrating!  Try getting five kids up, dressed, fed and out the door by 7:30 .  I've done two loads of laundry, loaded the dishwasher, fixed five sack lunches and carpooled before you probably even brushed your teeth!"

One day my frustration level was particularly high.  We had been snowed in for three days and I was having mall withdrawal.   As I stormed through the house picking up toys I came across my daughters rhinestone crown.  She and a friend had been co-crowned "Little Princess" at their grade school fall festival. (They only had to raise three thousand dollars to win).  I put the crown on my head so I could carry more toys, and forgot about it.  Later that day I looked out and realized the sun had melted enough of the snow for me to get out.  I grabbed the car keys and ran.  I had been in the department store for thirty minutes before someone ask me why I had a crown on my head.  

Mornings are definitely the worst.  I've tried everything I know to make things run smoother so everyone will arrive on time at their designated areas.  Nothing works.  I tried fixing their lunches the night before.  They changed their mind about what kind of sandwich they wanted.

"Mom I don't want turkey.  I want peanut butter and jelly,"  son number one complains.

"No problem,"  I reply and get the bread out.

"I don't want wheat bread.  I want white,"  he mutters.

"No problem,"  I say as I get the white bread.

"Mom that's crunchy peanut butter.  It sticks in my braces.  I need the creamy," he instructs.

I take a deep breath.  "No problem."

"That's too much jelly,"  he whines.

Now we have a problem. 

"Listen mister,"  I say as I breath fire into his face and wave my jelly knife in the air.  "You can fix your own sandwich next time."   I still didn't feel as if I had revenge for the torture he  had put me through.  So I cast the curse of the evil mother upon him. "And further more when you grow up I hope you have a child just like you!"

I tried telling them to lay their clothes out on their beds so they can hop into them in the morning.  They don't want to wear  what they picked out at night.  It looks different in the light of day.  Plus they expect me to be Wanda the Weather Woman. 

"How cold is it outside Mom?"

"About forty degrees,"  I answer.

"Is it going to get colder or hotter today?"  my daughter mumbles from beneath a stack of covers where she has snuggled in for her winter hibernation. How am I supposed to know?  I fall asleep before the weather is on at night and I don't have time to watch it in the mornings. 

I thought maybe getting up earlier would help us get to school on time.  I got up an hour earlier but no one else did.  It was kind of nice.  The house was quiet.  I could read the paper  and eat my cereal without interruptions.  There was only one slight problem. I kept falling asleep and landing face down in my supper at night.  The night I passed out in my spaghetti convinced me I needed more sleep.

I don't think there is a solution to getting somewhere on time when you have a house full of kids.  In another twenty years  or so they'll all be grown and gone and then maybe I'll be on time for work.  I just hope my boss can wait that long.