(More than) Fourinarow.net

Yesterday, when I was talking to my sister on the phone, she asked, “so… is everything back to [insert our last name here] normal?”

“Yes,” I told her.  “That’s a perfect way to describe it.”  And, I left it at that, as I didn’t have time to elaborate.

Things are definitely back to normal around here.  Normal – for us.

Having left town with very little food in the fridge, the kids have been surviving on cereal and corn dogs.  Oh, and frozen waffles.

I’ve cleaned up two major spills.  (The floor is still sticky.  Guess I’ll have to work a little harder on getting it clean for the next spill.)

And, the kids went back to school yesterday morning with all the regular chaos that normally occurs.  I rehearsed with Jack about taking Lukie into his preschool building and dropped everyone off on time.  I crept slowly away, watching in my mirrors to make sure Jack and Luke headed in the right direction and Maria made it into her building.

With a sigh of relief, I turned the corner and headed to the grocery store with Sam to pick up some Diet Dr. Pepper and a gallon of milk.  Everything else could wait until an evening trip to Costco, but the Diet Dr. P was a necessity.  And the milk.  I guess.

I was grabbing my receipt from the self-pay machine when my phone rang.  It was Dan.  “Susan,” he said.  “You dropped Luke off at school today!”

“Yeeesssss….” I told him.  “It went fine.  Jack took him in.”  (There may have even been a little pride in my voice here.)

“He doesn’t HAVE school today.  The school just called me.”

Oops.

As I was shoving Sam and my purchases into the van the phone rang again.  It was the school secretary reiterating what Dan had told me.  With an embarrassed laugh, I told her I’d be there in 5 to pick Luke up.  She told me he’d be in the classroom.

When I showed up, Luke was sitting on the rug, listening to a story, without a care in the world.  As we walked out to the car I asked him if he noticed that all his friends were different. “What?” he asked.  “Nevermind,” I told him.  This morning, though, it was obvious he knew exactly what had happened, as he informed me that today was the “right day” for school.

Not wanting to take any chances this morning, I parked so I could walk Luke into school myself.  As I was herding children in the parking lot, I looked up to see my friend struggling with her stroller.  Embarrassed, she asked me if I could help her with it.  It was folded and she couldn’t get it to open up.

“Sure!” I told her.  “I had one just like this.”

The kids and I stepped over to where she was and we all examined it together.  And couldn’t open it.  Feeling ridiculous, I continued to study the stroller, while Jack gave helpful hints such as, “you need to go on the internet and get the instructions!”  Here we were, two moms with seven kids between us, owners of probably every conceivable baby gadget made, and we couldn’t open up the $%^! stroller.  Sheesh.

As time was ticking, we decided it would simply be much easier for me to take her daughter with us and head over to school.

Jack and Maria went off in their direction and I walked the preschoolers into their building.  Where they were nice enough not to make fun of me.

Back to normal.