Tang you Mommy!

I remember when Grasshopper was a baby, I asked my mother, "At what age do children start to appreciate everything that we do for them and thank us for it?"

Her response, after she was able to haul herself off of the floor and stop laughing was,"Age 23."

This was really not the response I'd been hoping for. And as it turns out, she was wrong.

Last Thursday I was having a very bad day. The kind of day where you wake up late, can't find your glasses even though they're right there on your nightstand and step in cat puke on your way to the shower because you couldn't find your glasses. And that was just the first 5 minutes! I proceeded to burn Grasshopper's waffle, slice my finger while quartering grapes for his lunch (yes, the school insists that grapes be quartered) and step in the cat puke I'd conveniently forgotten about AGAIN because of my harried rushing.

I thought by the time Grasshopper and I were pulling into the driveway at his school and I looked at the little clock in my dashboard and it said that we were EARLY that I had actually managed to come out on top with all of my rushing around. Take THAT bad morning! I am woman, hear me overcome you!

And then I realized that I had left Grasshopper's school bag, with his lunch and his jacket in it AT HOME. I also realized that since we were early, the school doors would be locked and I could not drop Grasshopper off for another 7 minutes. I had a decision to make: Do I wait here in the parking lot for school to open, run him in and tell his teacher that I'll be back as soon as I can with his bag and thereby cut drastically into the 3.5 hours of Grasshopper-free time I get on Tuesday and Thursday mornings OR do I turn around now with him and take him home with me to get the bag. Traffic had been light, after all we made it to school early, so I did a u-turn and off we went.

"SCHOOOOL!" Grasshopper howled as we pulled away. "Punkin," I told him, "We forgot your bag! We have to go home and get it just as fast as we can, and then you'll get to go to school, okay?" He decided that this was acceptable, as long as we hurried. No problem, I thought, it's only 6 miles.

It took us 43 minutes.

Needless to stay, my day did not get better from there. But I will not bore you with the gory details of it. Also, I think my mind has blocked many of them because the trauma was just too much. It was a very bad day.

Fast forward to yesterday morning, which was going a lot better than Thursday morning, so much so that I was able to complete my assigned Craft Project (Craft Project warrants italics and capital letters because I am craft-challenged, yet I succeeded in making my assigned 12 crafts without damaging myself or any other members of my family) for the Secret Santa Shop at the school fundraiser coming up. I decided to take Grasshopper's bag with me to the car when I loaded in my box of crafts and set it in the front seat. Then I finished getting the young gentleman ready for school and loaded him up too. In the backseat, of course.

So we're almost to school when from the backseat I hear, "Mommy STOP!"

Since my kid is in no way qualified to tell anyone how to drive, I kept going and asked him why he wanted me to stop, since we were almost to school.

"Turn around, BAG! Go back get BAG!" he wailed while kicking the passenger seat.

"Sweetheart," I say, "I have your bag right here." Holding it up so that he can see it.


"Oh." He meets my eyes in the rear view mirror and gives me a beatific grin.

"Tang you Mommy!"