Reason's To Be Late To School

This morning, five minutes AFTER the time we were supposed to be leaving for school, S4 began what I could immediately tell would be a long story on how the red gloves on the floor were so cool because he could wear them OR I could wear them.

So I do the whole "look at me...We. Are. Late."  This has to be carried out with the greatest of care because if it is too emotional, he will burst into tears and then we will be even later.

The ladies working the cross walk at school have gotten to the point that they cheer when we are on time.

Not. Even. Joking.

But the best, the BEST reason we have been late to school lately is this jewel of a story....

Some well meaning teacher at Word of Life gave S4 an airplane.  You know whose cheap ones you buy flat and then slide the pieces into?  They are sorta made of foam?  Those.

Sorta like this but not this one - thanks Google Image.

They were ready for school early (SHOCK!) and had run outside to play.  Because it was a work day for me, I was still flying around getting ready.  S4 brought out his little airplane and S2 had a brilliant plan.

I'll let you pause a moment to think about what could possible be a brilliant idea.......…

Our kitchen on the house is a lean to built on ancient million years ago.  Our entire house was built so long ago that it doesn't have year — seriously.  And at some point they added the lean to kitchen.  The roof dips low and that roof had caught S2's eye.

"Let's fly the airplane over the kitchen.  It will look SO cool!" he suggested.

Since S2 has the best football throwing arm of the three of them, S2 threw the airplane.

It landed on the roof.

And it did not fly off.

S4 burst into tears.  S2 knew he was going to be in trouble for this one so he thought up a brilliant idea. Hockey sticks are long and have a sorta hook on them...hockey sticks could get this airplane down.

Meanwhile, I am in the house thinking they are being so super good getting ready for school.  Imagine my surprise when I heard THUMP on the roof.

Do you think I could pull those boys away from rescuing the airplane?  No.  We ran to classes explaining that they had tried to get an airplane off the roof with hockey sticks and everyone stared at us for a moment and then just laughed because that pretty much figures with us.

That night I had forgotten about the hockey stick and airplane incident.  Being cold and ever so tired, I decided to take an early shower.  As I was lathering my hair in shampoo I heard the door slam.  Then I heard running feet on the upstairs steps.  Then I heard "thump, thunk, thump".  The dog began to bark. The feet ran down the steps.  The door slammed.

And then it started all over again.

No one heard my "Hey, what's going on?" shout from the shower.

When I got out of the shower, dripping wet, wrapped in the towel, three little boys filed into the house. "What was going on out there?" I asked.

S2 shrugged.  "We were just playing football."

"Yah," S3 agreed too quickly.

"Why was the dog barking?" I asked.

"The dog barked?" S2 asked blankly.

"Why were you running upstairs?  And going in and out of the house?" I drilled.

"Um, I don't know," S2 said slowly.  I had him pegged as the ring leader.

"I feel you are not telling me something."  I gave them all that mean, hard mom look which I must have mastered because, lets face it, it's hard to take someone seriously when they are wrapped in a green towel with a pink towel turban on top of her head.

S4 caved.  "We threw the football to get my airplane," he squeaked out.  He held up the recovered airplane for me to see.

"How did you do that?"

"Well," S2 began, all nonchalant like it was no big deal, "We just threw the football on the roof to get the plane down."

A light went on in my head.  "You went upstairs and threw it out the window."

S4 nodded solemnly.  He was certain I would take the airplane away now.  Tears were forming in his eyes.

S3 was not admitting to anything.  He was willing to let his brothers get in all the trouble and make a clear get away on this.

The three boys had run upstairs, opened the upstairs window over the kitchen, leaned out the window and thrown the football towards the airplane, attempting to hit the airplane to get it to move and fall off the roof.

It took a lot of tries.

S1 wandered in the front door about this time.  "What's going on?" he asked, looking us all over.  S2 tossing his football from hand to hand.  S3's eyes huge and his feet fidgety.  S4's head hung low with tears dripping down his face.  Mama in a towel in the middle of the room.

"Where have you been?" I demanded.

"I was in my shop.  Why?" he asked, thinking he should have stayed there.

I turned back to the other three.  "That was NOT a wise idea."  I could see them holding up the window — it doesn't stay up on its own — while they leaned far out the window to toss out the football.  "No football till you play with Daddy," I added.

The three nodded solemnly.  I headed for the bedroom to get dressed, S1 hung around to get S2's story.

Really, why am I exhausted at the end of the day?

What To Do If A Gallon Of Paint Falls All Over Your Kitchen Floor

There are so very many titles for this post.

Here is what happened....

Yesterday I began getting all my fall decorations out and somehow managed to make the house messier than it was before I began.  And people, it was messy.  Like, I can't believe we are living like this messy.

I blame football six days a week.

Anyhow.

Hubs had given me "the look".  So this morning I made some super strong caramel coffee, ate an apple donut and got to work. 

I kicked butt.

I cleaned parts of this house that forgot what clean felt like (behind the toilet, for instance).  I scrubbed every pot and pan.  I folded five million loads of laundry (but not any socks).

I still had a ways to go, but I could see the end in sight.  Jake was gone on an overnight haul trip and I was certain when I went to bed the house was going to look transformed - and very fallish (my favorite kind of decorating.  Seriously. Who can't love fall decorations?).

I had calculated the time that the boys would only have 15 minutes after getting off the bus for us to leave again for practice so I decided to go pick them up.  Being busy cleaning, I had not made any after school snacks, but figured I would quick mix up a batch of no bake cookies when we got home.  I grabbed my cookbook for the recipe to be out when I returned, walked into the dining room and suddenly heard a very loud

Crash

I knew.  I knew before turning around what it was.

Long ago, before summer even began, I finally had decided on a paint color for the kitchen.  We had gone and bought said paint color.  I had asked a bunch of times if we could paint because according to my husband I am by far one of the worlds worst painters and he needs to help me.

I know for a fact, after today, I am WAY better than some others who shall remain nameless.

Timing never seemed right, so I just kept the paint on top of the dishwasher but I recently had moved it because it made a great book stop for stack of cookbooks.

Well, it had made a great book stop.  No longer.

Paint oozed out.  There is no way to scoop up paint, in case you ever wondered about that.

Once it begins pouring, you just begin crying.

It was like THE time for me to leave for getting the boys.  As I drove to the school, I realized that I was in the currently living in what would probably prove to be a great blog post.  I quick zipped to school and picked up my very surprised boys who thought they were riding the bus home.

"How was your day?" asked S1.

"Well, here's the thing...." I began.

"What.  Happened.  Now."

S1 knows me ever so well.

"Well," I began, "There was a slight accident.  But no one was hurt!  Um, thereisagallonofpaintalloverthekitchenfloor," I rushed out.

S3 and S4 suddenly had sonar ears.  "We get to paint? Yippee!" and they ran for the suburban.

"My thought is," I explained to S1 as I watched them gleefully run, "to just start painting the kitchen.  There is no way to get the paint back in the can so let's just paint it.  But I don't know where paint brushes and stuff is."

When we arrived home, all the boys trooped into the kitchen.  "Wow.  That is a mess," was the general statement of the moment.

What struck me greatly is that while this was definitely a big mess, no one seemed shocked by it.  Not even slightly fazed.  It's almost as if they are used to such things happening....

Maybe I should be worried.

No time to think on that now.

I set S3 and S4 in a spot in the kitchen I was sure that no eyes would ever see but me when I dared to move the furniture.  I had the boys just scoop paint onto paper plates and paint as fast as we could before it got sticky and before we had to leave for football practice.

(You apparently paint better if you just wear your grundies.)

Because I had not gotten to mopping the floors yet (that is an after bedtime thing to do here), the paint has a certain "texture" to it.  We have a sort of grass effect going on.  But we could call it "organic" and it may catch on.

I did not think that the little boys could possibly ruin a back hidden wall.  

I was wrong.

And the door was right next to the wall and the door was already covered with paint and since all the paint happened to be right in front of the door....

People, my boys had a great time. They laughed and stood tall knowing they were helping their mama, but that door is forever going to look like an eight and six year old painted it.  And a few other parts of the kitchen one wouldn't normally paint in a room are glowing in red.

It looks like we really like the color red.

All the boys agreed on one thing...it was a good thing Daddy was overnight.

We weren't even close to being done when it was time to leave for football.  S2 cried all the way to practice, he is so tired.  S3 and S4 fought over who could pretend to sing to the radio and who had to wait for another song to come one.  I did the never done before and left the two football players behind and drove home to continue painting.  When we arrived home, I sent the two little ones to watch TV.

The kitchen floor was covered in paint now.  Everyone had stepped in it and walked all over.  Paint brushes dripping in paint had left long lines of paint across the room.

My husband called.

Now, he can call me and talk for twenty minutes straight about someone he met or some place he stopped or road conditions or weather.  I was really hoping he wouldn't say, "And what have you been up to today?"

But he did.

So I told him.

I held nothing back.  Might as well prepare him.

He was not even shocked.

Are you catching a pattern here?

Even my friends I had text the photo too were unsurprised.  Some even giggled.  Giggled hysterically I would suppose.  Just they wait until paint falls on their kitchen floors.

Wait, I am the only one I know of who has ever had that happen.

The kitchen I had worked so hard to clean was suddenly this hazard mess everywhere.  I only had one burner on the stove I could get to so dinner had to be "creative".  I made up a couple packets of instant noodles, added some left over roast and headed out to pick up the boys.

When we went to get into the suburban to leave, somehow S4 forgot that his door was open, as in wide open, went to lean against it to buckle up and fell out of the suburban onto the hard pavement.

He was still gripping his booster seat.

He let out the most blood curdling scream.  A dad came to see what exactly was going on.  S4 was wailing and it was hard to tell if he was crying because he was scared, hurt, super hurt or overtired.

He asked if he could go to the hospital.

I may have gone to that "mom zone" in my head as I drove home to S4 wailing he may never be able to sleep again and that his wrist was broken so he could never to go school again while S2 cried that his Lions hat he had forgotten at practice the night before was missing and looked to never be returned again.

When we got home S4 ran for the TV, ate two or three plate-fulls of what all the boys deemed one of the best dinners I had ever made (hmmmm, that isn't helping me much.  Here I cook all these big from scratch dinners and they like the noodles from a package with left over roast beef.) and seemed to be just fine.  Well, until shower time when the wailing began all over again.

I think the second week of school is tougher than the first.

I sent the boys to bed.  S3 and S4 said they had to sleep with me so I wouldn't get lonely.  They have taken over the entire bed with all their stuffed animals.  S4 who was so sure he would never sleep again due to his booster seat accident seems just fine.

I scrubbed the floor on my hands and knees.  In my head, I rearranged some furniture pieces that I am now too exhausted to move.  I will spare you the gory details of scrubbing but believe me when I say my fingers ache.  It is pure love to share the story with you (so you can all be thankful this did not happen to you).  But just as I was finishing, S1 came down and stood in awe of the kitchen.

"We did pretty good," he said, "We should have painted this a long time ago."

I have to admit, we did do a pretty good job.  I love the color and I had forgotten how pretty it is.

So, if you need a room cleaned, spill a gallon of paint on your floor and let your kids go wild with the paintbrushes.  It will get done in no time.

OR....paint it as soon as you buy the paint and spare yourself (and your knees and fingers) some serious grief.

All in all, even though I am glad this day has ended and I get to finally go to bed, it honestly is going to be one of those days that we remember forever.  I think we all will grin when we tell the story of how the kitchen got painted.