My dishes were dirty all week

If you know me, you know exactly what that means. Bill was out of town. He's the dish doer in our family. He even left me with clean dishes in the dishwasher, but I didn't even empty the thing until the hour before he returned.

There weren't too many dishes since I am fully committed to not making meals while Bill is gone. Mac and cheese. Taco Bell. It is my little break from making dinners and it affords me the opportunity to focus on the kids. This week it worked out really well that it was Red Ribbon Week at school which is a focus on staying drug free. The kids wear their red ribbon every day and local businesses will give them free things each day of the week. So, the free pizza from the grocery store was their dinner every night. And the cookie from a restaurant was their dessert. And the ice cream cone from DQ was their appetizer. It worked out perfectly!

Not only were my kids fed, but you'll be happy to know that I remembered to feed the dog every day as well. In our family, Bill is the glue. I'm the Spice, but he's the Glue. He's the responsible one. He keeps us on track. He holds us together. We didn't completely fall apart without our Glue, but things didn't go as smoothly as normal. They definitely didn't on Wednesday.

Wednesday was the only day I had to get the kids to both schools. I was up late blogging Tuesday night and struggled to wake up on time. So what else is new? But I did it and we made it out of the door. Tate starts school at 8am and Emmie and her best friend need to be at Cooking Club at their school also at 8am. I was kind of proud of myself that we were going to make it.

I got Tate to school at 7:52 and was feeling pretty good for managing 5 kids and two different drop offs. As usual, that is the moment things went awry. Emmie asked, "Mom, I thought you were going to come in to take pictures of our last Cooking Club today."

I answered, "Oh yes, honey. I have the camera right here."

Then she asked, "Then why is Jack in his jammies without any shoes?" (He didn't have to be to school until 9am).

Uh oh. I had to think fast because we were almost at the school. I offered Jack Emmie's pink gloves to wear on his feet, but he wasn't down with that. It seems like a school has kind of an unwritten "No shirt. No shoes. No service" policy. So, I had Jack come in and stand in the breezeway while I ran around the corner with Lulu and snapped a few pictures. I was only gone a few minutes, but in that time a concerned mom (that I don't know) stopped to ask Jack some questions. I came back just as she was headed to the office to report the little boy standing in the breezeway barefoot and in pajamas...
So I avoided a call to social services and I got my pictures of cooking club...
All before 8:10am.

Here are Jack's from his cooking club the next afternoon, fully clothed and wearing shoes, thank you very much...
The Glue is back home now. And it's a very good thing.