L will say, and I need MY keys! She'll grab the stool out of the bathroom to reach them from the hook where she hung her keys alongside ours the evening before.
E will yell, I'm not ready! I just have to pee!
G will gurgle, a flah flah flah! because he's still zipped up in his warm jacket but not yet sitting in the cool car.
I will carry three kids' lunch bags in one hand and one heavy baby in the other and descend the two steps into the garage. L will dart in front of me, circling the car and "unlocking" every door with her hardware as I try not to trip over her. All unlocked, Mama! she'll offer helpfully.
I'll get G in his carseat straps against his protests and I'll beg L to climb up in the other side and begin her straps and I'll call to E, "where are you? Are you coming?"
And L will have gone back into the house and will call to me, I'm coming! I had to hang up my keys! and G will be very disgruntled about his restraints and the second insult of the continuing lack of sisterly companionship in the back seat and E will still be mysteriously not here, and I have to remember to take the three lunch bags off of the roof of the car and inside. And who needed show and tell and do I have $10 and their signed permission slip and is today the deadline for canned goods for the food drive and does L need more underpants in her emergency clothes box and did I grab my phone and is my purse already in the car and did the lovely husband make me coffee, and did I leave it on the counter again?
Where are my daughters?
What else am I forgetting?
L calls to me that she's ready for me to buckle her straps and I run down my mental mama-checklist and I think I have everything and I call to E one last time, "child, will you be going to school today?" and she yells back, I can't come! I'm stuck!
And I grow exasperated and call again, "why not? We're all waiting!"
And three schoolday mornings in a row now, she has answered: I finished peeing and I can't wash my hands! I can't reach the sink because L stole the stool for her keys and didn't bring it back!
Still life with key rack
Where good safety protocols interfere with good hygiene.
