Just One of Those Days...

It's been one of those mornings.  You know the kind.  The kind where you wish you could rewind a couple of hours, go back to bed and start over?  It's only 7:30 in the morning...hopefully the rest of the day will go better.

 

My alarm went off at 6:30, giving me just enough time to roll out of bed, get dressed, and walk out the door to take Taylor to his weight training football and then basketball practice at Skyview High. 

 

Taylor is already up, has eaten breakfast, and is ready to go.  On most mornings, he has been riding his bike the couple of miles down to the school...but last night I offered to drive him because I didn't have any Dr. appts. that would keep me from being able to pick  him back up at 11:00 when he finishes up!  He was super happy to have a ride!

 

I grab my purse to go, but don't hear the friendly jingle of car keys in the outside pocket. 

I shake my purse.  No jingle.  Shake again.  Still no jingle. 

 I look at Tay.  He looks at me.  Enter panic mode.

 

We both start going through the house as fast and quietly as we can, looking in drawers, on cabinet tops, on dressers, in clothes pockets...we cannot find them anywhere.  I double-check and recheck and triple check my purse but still no jingle.  Why am I obsessed with finding them in my purse?  Because I am one of those crazy people who ALWAYS put my keys back in the same place:  the outside pocket of my purse.  If they are ever lost?  It is ALWAYS because someone has used them and not put them back.  So frustrating!

 

So I quickly text Andy, who has already left for work to ask if he's seen them anywhere.

No response.  He is either still driving, or with a patient.  So Tay and I keep looking.  No luck.

 

It is now 7:10.  Taylor is a full ten minutes late and still no keys.  We have even looked outside in the garages and in the Yukon itself.  No luck.  I am nearly in tears, tears of ultimate frustration!  I'm apologizing to Taylor when he throws his backpack on, opens the front door, gives me a hug and says...

"It's okay Mom...I'll just ride my bike.  C-ya."

Ya...I feel like a million bucks right about now. 

So...I go to each bedroom and tell each child over two years old to get out of bed and meet me in the kitchen. 

This can't be good. 

My voice isn't even raised...even worse...even more scary. 

It's that terrible scary, scary quiet "you are in SO much trouble and you know it" voice that they all dread.

So here's how it goes from there:

 

All right kids.  I have been up for nearly an hour looking for my keys.  Do any of you know where they are? 

 

Everyone looks at each other, they're rubbing sleepy eyes...and then comes the:

"I think Brooklynn used them to open the storage room..."  "No I didn't!  Matthew used them yesterday!"  "Ya, but I put them back!  Lainah used them too!"  blah blah blah.  Not getting anywhere with this line of questioning.

 

hmm....So it appears that you all used them yesterday at one point, but the problem is nobody thought to have enough respect to put them back into my purse!  (yep, I used the big "respect" word.  Seriously...my kids were probably trying to figure out what respect had to do with missing keys.)

 Still no one coming forward to confess, so I use the old "everyone will suffer until the problem is solved tactic."

 

So this is what's going to happen.  No one is going to go back to sleep.  No one is going to eat breakfast.  No one is going to use the bathroom until my keys are found!  Go search!

No one moves.  I have 4 children staring at me.  Five year old Lainah asks, "are you serious Mom?"

Yes Lainah, I am serious.  Go look for the keys.

But Lainah starts dancing around...and so I say, "Fine, Lainah, you can go to the bathroom first...then look for the keys!"

They all shoot off in different directions.  In less than 5 minutes, I hear:  "I found them Mom!  They were in the storage room next to the spaghetti sauce!"  Brooklynn found them.  So we gather back in the kitchen and I ask, "all right...which one of you used them and left them by the spaghetti sauce instead of putting them back in my purse pocket!?"  (Nope, I wasn't letting this misdemeanor go.)

 

It is silent for a few seconds.  Then I hear a little sigh...

 

and then I hear, "It was me Mom..." 

It was this cute little naughty witch who used my keys and didn't put them back where they belonged. 

 Big huge sigh from me...because although they are finally found, poor Taylor is still late and still had to pedal a few miles before he goes to lift weights and work hard at drills for 4 hours before pedaling back home.  But really the big sigh is because even though it's now only about 7:30 in the morning...I feel like the day is already spoiled. 

 

And not spoiled by lost keys...spoiled by my craziness over the lost keys. 

 

Taylor will survive...the keys were found...but here are 4 frazzled and sleepy children staring at me in my kitchen wondering who this crazy lady is and what did she do with their mother?

 

Finally, little Lainah breaks the silence and says, "So can we eat now mom?  I'm hungry!"

 

Before all this happened, I had been planning on making orange sweet rolls today...so maybe the day will turn out okay after all!

 

Note:  No, we weren't all dressed up for Halloween this morning...but as I was thinking about documenting this catastrophe, I remembered these funny pictures we took last year after trick or treating...and how crazy I looked in my wild wig and thought...ya...that would be perfect....