Getting children off to school is the most stressful thing I* have to do in a day. And, after whining to numerous people, I'm starting to see this is an issue that extends far beyond our home's four walls.

I don't understand. Kids, school is awesome. You get to draw and take naps and run around and shit. You get to answer really easy questions like "what's 2+5?" and look like a total boss in front of your friends. These days nobody says to me, "Yo, your super important job this week is to learn to play Ba-Ba Black Sheep on this recorder. Work really hard, ok? There are stickers waiting for you."

What? Best life ever.

Do you scrub toilets in school? No.

Do you pay bills in school? No.

Do you pick up other people's socks stuffed into couch cushions at school? No.

Do you make everyone's meal in school and then get told that it's not what they wanted and they're not going to eat it and that maybe you should remember that they don't like bread with seeds in it and apples are only good if they're cut up and why don't you know by now that the fruit snacks in the green box are gross? Hell, no. You just eat your damn lunch. That you didn't even make. Holy Hannah, it's a utopia.

So why - why!? - do they not want to get up in the morning? I have to bring one kid cereal in bed and get the other one dressed while he's half asleep. I have to carry one to the kitchen table and give him 10 different breakfast ideas before he picks one, while running back and forth to the other one's room to wake him up again and remind him - not too firmly or he'll melt down and that will throw our entire schedule off - to get dressed eight thousand times**.

He'll say he's cold. "Here's a crazy idea," I'll suggest helpfully. "Instead of wearing a t-shirt in subzero temperatures, why don't you wear a sweater?"

"No. I'll just stay in bed."

"Okay. But you can't. Would you like a hoodie to go over your t-shirt, then?"

"No. I'm cold. Nothing will change that."

"But... If you... hoodie... head hurts... reasoning gland... exploding..."

"I DON'T WANT A HOODIE! I'M JUST COLD!!!"

"And I'm just about to take up morning drinking," I'll mutter under my breath.

"What?" He'll ask, his hearing aids still sitting on his desk.

"Nothing, sweetheart. Let's wrap that blanket around your bare arms and get you to the front hall since school started ten minutes ago."

"Don't stress me out! I don't care when school started!" He'll complain.

"Have you learned what contradictions are yet?"

"What?"

"Nothing. Here are your hearing aids and here's a blanket. Let's go." I'll give him a hug and wrap him in a blanket and be grateful I have no way of checking my blood pressure. Then we'll spend 10 minutes coaxing the winter gear on, and then another 3 getting him into the car, and then, if we're lucky, no time getting him out of the car and into school. (We're not always lucky.)

I have to be the cheerleader. I wake up before everyone else, throw on my cheerleader outfit (I don't, really, but pretend. Also, maybe pretend I have a cheerleader's body for good measure), and wake the beasts with a huge smile on my face. I don't know how I do it. It takes immense effort. I'm likely going to be canonized after I die, and they can paint me with a cross over the cleavage-riddled cheerleader's uniform.

And I do it every bloody weekday morning, despite knowing there's a high probability of high frustration. In all likelihood, I will be yelled at least once, but probably three or four times. There's at least a 75% chance that, despite our best efforts, they won't get out the door on time. It's a war that can't be won. Oh, sure, we get pleasant mornings of reprieve that smack of Christmas day in the trenches, but they're short lived. Then it's right back into the fray.

Know what makes up for it all, though? This, right here. Me and my pajamas and my caffeinated cup of companionship, all alone with only the trendy sounds of dubstep music filling the house. Me, blogging. Me, screenwriting. Me, freelancing. Me all alone with glorious me. And that's what Saint Maven keeps in mind every time she contemplates hanging herself from the hooks in the front hall while waiting for grouchy gremlins to scuttle into their winter coats. That's what she tells herself when she reaches into the freezer to discover that, in fact, no one has yet invented prozacicles.

(But they will, and it's going to be a thing, and I will buy them by the Costco-sized crateful.)



*Actually, I usually have help from Geekster, but I'm a bit of a victim type and I like to make it seem like it's all me.

** I might be exaggerating a little. It's more like 800 times. Fine. 8. Still, that' a lot of times. Also, I lose count after banging my head on the counter repeatedly in between trips to his bedroom.