It Happens

That moment, when you have just finished a lovely ladies afternoon with your 4 year old and her friends at Sweet & Sassy for their first pedicure and you’re on your way to school to wait for dismissal of your 6 and 7 year olds:

While on route, the school nurse calls to see if you can pick up your 6 year old from kindergarten early, because another child had an accident in his classroom that he was not directly involved in.

He did, however, step in it.

Literally.

And is in need of a change of clothes and shoes {and to be sanitized in a clean room decontamination area from head to toe just as a precaution.}

So you ask if you can pick up your 7 year old early too because you don’t have time to go home to get him showered, changed, and return to school before actual dismissal time.

Which of course is fine because the school recognizes what a crappy situation this is.

Minutes later, you arrive at school and carry your now sleeping 4 year old instead of waking her because

• She is shoeless from getting her first pedicure,
• It’s a cold, rainy, winter day,
• Keeping her locked in the car is generally frowned upon in the parenting {and legal} world,
• She’s often quite unpleasant upon waking,
• And frankly, you have enough “schtuff” to deal with, so you keep it real and carry on.

In the school office you begin to sign your children out but get stuck on the section that asks for a reason for the early dismissal.

You want to write in “it happens” but politely defer to “minor accident” to decrease the load of paperwork that may follow.

You and the school office manager have a good laugh in apparent solidarity, I-can’t-evens, and what-the-hell-just-happened-ness, while your {now awake} 4 year old shows off her toes and you instruct your son to stop moving around and not to touch ANYTHING, especially with his shoes which is a problem because, as he points out, he can’t fly.

You walk to the car where you open the back of your SUV for your son to climb in so that you can remove his shoes with a plastic bag while you buckle in your youngest daughter and your oldest daughter, still confused about why she had to be picked up early too, jumps in muddy puddles and avoids the car like the plague.

She finally gets in car, making sure to complain about the smell, while you wrestle with a plastic bag and your son’s sneakers and shout, “Sit down! Get buckled! PLEASE! Just be quiet, and stop moving!”

Once the shoes are safely removed, your son begins to climb over the back seat and that’s when you notice that he clearly sat on his feet before realizing his shoes were covered in IT, so you instruct him to stop immediately and remove his pants, inside out, to place them in the plastic bag with his shoes.

He is clearly embarrassed by this and he tries to pull his shirt down to his knees to cover his boxer-briefs but at this point you’re just yelling orders, “Just climb over! Get in your seat! Buckle up! We gotta go!”  While wondering what-the-hell the parent parked behind you must be thinking about your parenting style.

But then you realize that you don’t really care that much and you carefully signal to safely exit your parking spot, ahem: peel out, to head home and begin the decontamination process.

You get home and unload the children, sending your son straight up to the shower while starting the sanitation load of wash. You take a minute to pour yourself a glass of wine because, on days like today, it doesn’t much matter that it’s not 5 o’clock anywhere…

Hours later, when you FINALLY have time to take a deep breath and unpack, you discover your son’s CLEAN rain boots were in his book bag the whole time and realize that maybe, just maybe, you have your parenting shit together, afterall.