FAIL!

I'll be the first to admit that I haven't set the best example of consistency with my children. Our years of homeschooling were riddled with excuses about not doing school because we were tired or mom was having a psychotic episode or whatever. So, they're not used to this ridiculously strict schedule of having to be at school EVERY DAY. . .ON TIME!

Yesterday, Joy did not want me to leave her at school. She clung to me and insisted she was going to throw up. I held my ground and did not waver at all. I told her she was simply not coming home with me. I prayed with her, got her calmed down, and she ended up having the best day out of all my children. I walked away feeling very good about my parenting skills.

This morning, not so much.

Two kids wanted to stay home because "they weren't feeling well." While I think Joy was just suffering from nerves again, Hope's excuse was realistic. She had a sudden onset of a cold last night. Strangest thing I ever saw - when she got home from school she was out jumping on the trampoline and by bedtime, she was sniffling, coughing and stuffy-headed. It's going around, and chances are, all my kids are going to get everything that's going around because they have never been around so many germs in their lives.

Hope woke up this morning with a stuffy head, headache, and cough. My "mom instinct" was to keep her at home, but after consulting with my hubby, we agreed that our kids shouldn't stay home for every cold, so I medicated her symptoms, told her to take a warm shower and get ready for school.

Meanwhile, Joy would NOT get out of bed. School starts at 8, and at 7:30 AM, she was still lying in the fetal position, in complete denial. It's a 12-minute drive to school - without traffic - meaning we HAD to walk out the door and my 8-year-old hadn't even emerged from dreamland yet.

That's when the screaming started. And it didn't stop until I dropped the kids off at school. Actually, I managed to restrain myself while I was actually walking the kids into school, which was a good thing because the place happened to be swarming with suits who were there for a ribbon-cutting ceremony (remember? brand new school?) Friendly staff members asked me, "Are you staying for the ceremony?"

I simply said I couldn't make it. Ahem. What I really meant was that I had successfully deposited my children in their appointed places and now I was going to go home and have several cups of coffee and gobs of chocolate and hope my blood pressure would go down before I had to pick the kids up again.

I expected that there would be days like this. I did not expect that they would come so soon. This does not bode well for the remaining 177 days of school.

Lord, Have Mercy.