Excuses to Be Late to School

This is a BONUS post because not only was I late to school - I was late getting home.

The other night, a winter weather watch was issued.  Some places were getting tons of snow, some places would not get any snow.  The boys were SURE that we were the place where ALL the snow would dump.

And some places did get snow.  My parents woke to a winter wonderland and they are just a couple miles away.

We got....

None.

Not even a little dusting on the grass.

Not a single bit of snow at all.

S2 woke up, seen this, and was not at all daunted.  He was CERTAIN we had a two hour delay, if not a full snow day.

I pointed to the fact we had No. Snow.  He pointed to the tv where there WAS snow, somewhere.  For all we knew, it was piled high at school, no way to get in!

He was so convincing that at the marked time for us to leave, his little brothers were just getting cereal.  They really thought we had a two hour delay.

So we left a bit late.

We arrived at school at 8:02.  School starts at 8:00.  I did not even acknowledge the staff in the office - but to be fair, it was pretty busy in there with other late parents with kids.

I figured out how I could get them to class the fastest and was dictating directions when S1 remembered I hadn't signed his planner.  No signed planner means loosing recess time.  No boy ever wants to loose recess time!  Where had his planner been all evening? Upstairs in his room.

Every day I sign his planner I try to sign something fun.  I really do not like signing the planner but I guess the teacher has to sign 28 or so of them every day so I can sign one once a day.  Today I wrote, "Super Late Moma".  I don't even think S1 noticed.

I sent S4 to the bathroom to wash his hands and I dropped his stuff off in his locker.  My happy boy I had left in the hallway walked into the classroom, head down, tears dripping from his eyes.  I glanced at his teacher "I'll try to fix this" I whispered as I grabbed his hand and headed to S3's class.

Some boys in the bathroom told S4 his hair looked funny.  I told him EVERYONE's hair looked funny when they took their hat off.  And then I worked on smoothing it down.

S3 was still high five-ing friends in the hallway and still had his boots and coat on.  I opened his back pack to put his things away and found - wadded in the bottom of his backpack - the homework he didn't tell me he had to do.  And, the homework he HAD done last night was not in the back pack.

Ugh.

Hugs and kisses to him and I literally shoved him on into class before he forgot and wandered off to meet us at S2's class.

S4 and I arrived at S2's class where he, Jonathan and Jakob met us at the door.  Every day these three meet us and I always take a moment to talk to them all.  But today we were so late and I always fear I may get them all in trouble so I reminded them how late they were.  They were not all concerned about this as they wanted to know where S3 was, wanted to show us their cool coins and needed to know what I was making for dinner.

I think nearly the whole school knows what we are having for dinner every day.

S4 and I got to giggling as we walked with super speed to his class.  I dropped a happier boy off to class and all seemed well with the world again.

When I went to start my suburban to leave the school, it just went 'tic tic tic tic tic tic tic tic'.

My faithful suburban has never ever let me down.  Never once.

But amazing bus driver Mandy was there, and dear Alicia who's husband was home for the morning so I knew they would help me.  Mandy hopped in to fiddle with it and started the suburban right up.  I have no idea how.

But un-makeup-ed, little coffee-ed, hair uncombed, teeth still feeling the garlic bread of last night, me hugged her in all my joy at the soothing hum of my running suburban.

And so I drove home on our unsnowy roads to share this all with you.

In case you need a new excuse to be late to school - try the whole "Snow day" when you have NO snow excuse.

And - think of your friends close to you and be thankful for them.  Friends are treasures indeed.

Excuses to Be Late to School

I haven't had an installment of Excuses to Be Late to school in quite some time...because we have actually been on time.

I will let you take in that shocking bit of news for a moment.

Over the shock now?

One or two of those days....we were EARLY.

I know, it is difficult to believe.

But that went amazingly the other way today.

I had to debate long and hard to tell you this story though.  It tells some pretty awful stuff about this family.  But, to understand this story fully, you must hear it all in it's embarrassing horrific details.

My boys rooms are a disaster area.

There, I said it.

I scrubbed their rooms clean in September.  I sorted every single article of clothing.  I dusted every surface.  It was spic and span.

And since then they have gotten it messy and it's been easy for them to clean up.

But of late, it's just awful.  And I haven't had the heart to go back and clean it again.

To clear S1's name, I must say his side of the room is always totally spotless and it drives him batty to live with his brother's sloppiness.

This morning, early early early (so early I didn't even look at the clock), S4 crawled in bed with me.  I awoke with my alarm to a pillow pet, a stuffed dog and an elk in my face...and in the middle of all that was S4.  It was so sweet.

Because at five in the morning - yes, five - I heard S1 roaring down the steps...he is usually my latest sleeper...and S2 squeal with giggles of uncontrollable laughter.

"YOU!" my oldest, neatest, most responsible son roared, "You KNEW it was there!  That's why you shut off all the lights and ran!"

S2 could only laugh hysterically.

I heard some more commotion from the boys and could tell they had moved to the bathroom.  I could not muster the awake-ness to check on them to see what was going on.

Soon I heard the story...our dog who has recently began having issues (as in the dog that would not poop or pee all day if left alone (as rare as that would be) now sometimes cannot make it through the night.  And instead of waking me, she just goes on up to the boys room and leaves it there in hopes no one will notice.  I'm pulling my hair out over this new development.) left a pile of poop in the middle of the room.  S2 seen it on his way down the steps and quickly formulated what he was sure would be the best of plans.

S2 went upstairs - leaving the poop - and jumped on his oldest brother hollering he was late for school and he had better get up and Moma was storming mad he wasn't up.  When S1 began to waken - slowly - S2 ran for the door, shutting out the light and stumbled down the steps giggling.

S1 mutteringly got out of bed, made his way through his spotless side of the room, side stepped the pile of toys and papers S2 has on his side of the room and began the careful cross through S3 and S4's side of the room to reach the door - in the dark - and turn on the light switch, located at the door.

He then stepped in something wet and cold.

And realized immediately by the smell he had been dooped by his brother.

He managed to pummel his brother, clean up his foot, pummel his brother again and then he went back to bed - because he realized it was just after five and even his moma wasn't stirring yet.  He did holler at his brother to clean the nasty mess up.  S2 seen the pile of poop on the clothes and realized his good luck of not having to clean the carpet this time - he just threw all the clothes away that the dog had pooped on.

See, I'm telling you, utter humiliation here.

All the ruckus woke S3, who really did think it was time for school and got himself all good and ready for the day.  He then spent his time drawing pictures.  He then taped the said pictures all over the window next to my computer desk.

S1 ended up unable to sleep anymore and laying in bed thinking what S2 did to him just disgusted him so he decided he might as well get up and start the day.

S2, of course, also got already for school and settled in to read.

But about 6:30 this all was getting boring and they began to wrestle. play football, chase each other through the house.....

I just stumbled for the shower and mumbled something about making sure S4 was out of bed on time.

I should have thought that through a bit more because all three boys took great delight in waking S4 up.

S4 did not find it humorous at all.  He had to recuperate from their rudeness, so he went back to sleep.

And then the brothers did it all over again.

We then had 15 minutes before we had to leave for school.  The three brothers who had been up for forever at this point, went outside to play and wait while this moma was frantically trying to get S4 ready for school.

Outside, S3 decided to chase his brothers with sticks. S4 went out to put his packed back pack in the suburban and ended up diving into the back of the suburban to get away from his brother.  He was so sure he would get caught by his brother he just ducked down and hid in the suburban.

Which did wonders for the moma who was trying to get him ready for school.

We finally got everyone in the suburban, buckled, and took off down the road....

Only to have the back doors of the suburban fly open.

I had to brake fast and pull into the neighbors to shut the doors.

Apparently, when diving into the back of the suburban to hide from your brother you do not think to pull shut the doors behind you.

And then there we were, one of the last families to arrive to school.

Even though they had gotten up at five in the morning.

I am thinking of issuing a new rule - no one gets out of bed before six thirty in the morning.

And that is our newest excuse to be late to school as well as our awfully embarrassing family story.

I'm now off to clean my boys room.  Again.

(In whole other news...Fox 17 will be airing our digital detox story again on Saturday at 10 pm because they liked it so much. Woohoo, how cool is that?!?!?!

I told you Sarah did a great job with it :) )

Excuses to Be Late To School

Here's a new excuse for you all to try...if you dare.

The other morning, I woke the boys up 15 minutes early on accident.

Okay, honestly, it was because I needed a good hot shower to wake me up and I knew the boys were gonna have to be moving before I got out of the shower so I got them out of bed early.

And....we were on time to school.

We did lose a back pack and forgot a lunch in the process BUT we were ON TIME for school.

This morning I woke the boys up HALF AN HOUR early.  I mean, why not?

I still had to keep an eye on them because they all seemed a bit more crazy this morning. (This should have been my warning sign.)  And it was confirmed when I went walked out of the bathroom and three of them were gone.

S4 informed they were outside.

Don't think him angelic, he was holding one sock, tears trickling down his cheeks as he looked for just one sock to match it from the mountainous pile of socks.  Had he found it, he would have been outside.

Lunches were half made.  Literally, two pieces of bread and a container of jam and nothing else done.  The table was covered in cereal bowls, boxes of cereal and an open gallon of milk.

I ran around the house frantically getting things done when the troupe walked in.

I was not a nice mom.

"We have to LEAVE!" I hollered in my "you are in so much trouble" voice.

"Where?" S1 asked.

Now......I did not scream.  I was so shocked he would ask me this I just went silent.  Then I barked. "School! Like we do FIVE DAYS A WEEK!"

Then everyone moved toward the suburban...except for S3 who was wandering around outside with no socks or shoes on, shirt half on, no lunch made, no back pack in site and we still needed to locate his glasses.

We piled into the suburban.  Late.

"What," I finally asked, "Was so important you had to be outside?"

"We weren't sure if the chickens remembered how to get into the chicken coop so we thought we would round them up and show them how to get in there."

Seriously.

That was the excuse.

It was kinda hard to be mad at them for that.

BUT there will be a new rule tomorrow...No Rounding Up Chickens Until You are Totally Ready for School.

And, no, I have no idea what spurred this on.

Sending out this yee-ha excuse for you to borrow from over here....where I'll be recovering from the chicken round up all day.

Excuses To Be Late To School

I have decided to offer our services to you.

Need a new original excuse to be late to school? Just look up Life With Four Boys...Coffee Please and I'll keep a running tally on all sorts of great excuses.

As an added bonus, I will include serious ailments to come up with in case you need a day off.

Take today as an example.

Tuesday night is football practice.  This week we had a late Sunday night because S1 shot ANOTHER doe with his bow and we didn't get to bed till after ten.  Then Monday was practice and Daddy, S1 and S2 had to watch highlights of S2's game.  Twice.  Tuesday was practice and we all went along, Moma walked the track during practice or helped a crying S3 with homework.  We ate back straps for a special dinner and didn't get to bed till nine.

Enter Wednesday.

It's cold, so it's hard to wake up.

It's spirit week for homecoming so there are specific clothes to search for...and a realization that we do not own any T-shirts sporting any singing groups or stars.

S2 was going to pack a knife in his lunch to cut up the venison he wanted to bring to school to eat for lunch.  Thankfully, S1 and I caught it and raised all kinds of fear in the rest of the boys of bringing a knife to school.

We then had to cut up venison for lunch.

Butter and honey sandwiches suddenly are not liked and much coaxing was needed to convince S4 that yes, his lunch would be good.

Moma got  totally slightly distracted watching about the new iphone4s just released...but then she caught all the boys watching too so she had to turn the news off.

S4 then had to hug every single stuffed animal goodbye.  This is the first day he's not allowed to bring his stuffed friends to school.  He usually brings about four or five.  Every. Single. One. was hugged and lined up perfectly on the dining room table to greet him upon his arrival home.

Here's the best part....as we were leaving the driveway, the chicken literally would not move to let us pass and drive down the driveway.

I can not make this stuff up.

We dropped the boys off to school, where I have not a clue what to make for dinner because I am too tired to think anymore.  Wednesday does that to me.

S4 began to let me know his finger was beginning to hurt so badly and perhaps wondered if I thought he would be all right to be at school all day with such an injury.

I made it out of the school at 8:11.  School starts at 8:10.

Feel free to use all and any excuses.....

But be sure to check out your kiddos lunches.  I was in the kitchen with them and missed the knife.  What makes perfect sense to them does not always fly at school.