Real Life: A Kink(o's) in the Morning Routine

For the past two years as morning traffic reporter, I've been committed to getting people to work on time. Getting up the middle of the night - no problem. Over turned tractor trailer - I'm on it. Interstate shut down - I'll find you a faster option before you're even out of bed. In it to win it attitude, total commitment.  I loved it and lived it. Life was good... until my husband told me he had accepted his dream job in Ohio.  Of course, I had mixed emotions. Soon after that, I traded in my traffic badge for the morning mom badge. 

The truth is I was scared as hell to get Chance off to school every morning.  After all, my husband had horror stories to tell from his first year of getting Chance to the bus stop on time. Thank goodness, his new school started 2 hours later, so at least something was working in my favor.  Before I knew it, I was rocking a perfect morning routine and even managed to carve in coffee-in-bed time!  Life was good... until I heard a loud shrill from the other room. 'Mommmmmmm, my homework is due today, not Friday!  I can't go to school without my reading picture!" Apparently my initial reaction to this sudden outburst wasn't good enough because the shrill evolved into a full-fledged fit in under 60 seconds. This was worse than a 10-car pile-up in the middle of I-77 at the height of rush hour... and I had no alternate routes! Seriously?! I was lost. I was never going to get him out the door in twenty minutes. I knew this child was not leaving the house without his homework finished. (Maybe if I would have had his work ethic, I wouldn't have been held back in 2nd grade).  So now I needed a picture of him reading (laminated, no less!), with an accompanying Chance-authored story to boot. Really? 

The next thing I know, I'm driving to Kinkos, in the rain, in my pajamas, with my tank on E. Talk about a perfect storm of HOT MESS! Thankfully, no one in Columbus knows me or I would really be embarrassed.  As I took a couple of deep breaths and fought the traffic, I could hear sniffles in the background and see big blue watery eyes staring at me. Ah, I couldn't even fight this one. It was partly my fault anyway. So as Chance reminded me to text his teacher every 30 seconds, i agreed and like Nemo, I kept swimming.

Amongst this chaos, the project still got written and laminated, and we coasted to school on fumes.  However, the big Mom-payoff was when Chance told me how much he loved me and his paper. And as I watched him walk down the hall (albeit late, but thanks to Chance, his teacher had been informed via text), so very proud of his homework, what more could I ask for?!  After all, we raise our children to go after whatever it is in life they want regardless of what stands in their way. And that afternoon, when Chance came home and told me that they couldn't hang his picture up because it was laminated, I had to laugh. What made it even sweeter was that his teacher sent me an email telling me what a great child he was, caring and sweet, and that he always gives his best! 

So maybe I didn't get Chance to school on time, and maybe my "perfect" morning routine was shattered less than a month into the school year; I wouldn't have it any other way. Because in life, plan A rarely works, and in our house, we celebrate the moments when we surprise ourselves with a kickass plan B or plan C (or maybe even a plan K!) 

Cheers to the journey,
Brittany