Breakfast of champions

I stayed up late last night talking to my friend and cousin Annalise. She can always make me giggle, even when we are being 'serious'. She said she's been writing, so I'm going to try and talk her into blogging, because the girl? Is FUNNY. The only downside to this is that it was after 2 am when I got to bed. But I'm a sucker for some good conversation (especially lately) and it's worth sacrificing a little sleep.


Naturally, this morning I was dragging. Went to make the kids' sandwiches and no bread. Oh, right. I forgot to go get more last night. Not because I was on the phone or anything, but because I kept thinking, "I'll do it later" and inexplicably never did. Went to get the kids some breakfast and no milk. Oh yeah, I was supposed to get more milk when I went and to get the bread that I didn't go get.

Oops.

So you may be wondering...what, then, does the mother of the year give her kids to eat when there is no milk and the kids aren't jumping up and down with joy over the thought of dry cereal.

I let them have a chocolate bar.

I know! Judge away, I deserve it. ::Hanging my head in the shame of parental failure:: It was a horrible idea, but honestly the options were few and they didn't want eggs, pop tarts (which I'm not convinced is all that much better than a candy bar anyway), or dry cereal.

So then came the dilemma of what to pack them for lunch. I had hot dog buns and whole wheat sandwich rounds for bread, but the kids turned up their noses at the thought of a sandwich on anything but (as T put it) SQUARE sandwich bread. Emphasis on square included. So I made do with what we had and it didn't turn out too badly. Whether they will eat it or not is another question entirely.

Next up? Double checking back packs. T has a bottle of water, sunscreen, change of clothes, bathing suit...all good. S? I can't find her back pack. Hmm. They rode home with R from day camp yesterday since I had a hair appointment - maybe it's in the garage? Nope. Closet? Nope. Her room? Nope. Anywhere else I looked? Nope. So I try to call R - grrrrrrrr. The man doesn't answer his work phone when I'm having 'a something to locate' emergency. And his voicemail recording? Is not even him. And as snotty as this sounds, I'm not going to leave a voicemail for my husband if the person on the recorded voicemail message? Is not even him. I'm weird that way. It's a leftover from my time in collections.

So, email it is as I frantically continue searching. T is being uber helpful and walking behind me saying, "It's not there, Mom." as I look everywhere I can think of. Thank you, T. I appreciate and applaud your observation skills.

Then the phone rings. T says, "I'll get it" which has always meant that he goes and gets the phone and hands it to either me or R. This time? He answers the phone, "Hello? Oh, hi Dad." All cool and nonchalant. I have to smile. This kid is growing up so fast. T hands me the phone and R tells me that S didn't have her backpack with her yesterday and that the Y staff said she didn't bring it with her. I know that's not true because I carried it, but at least I can stop looking because it isn't going to be in the house. Good enough. So I pack S another bag and off we go to camp, where the counselor holds up her backpack as he sees us walking up.

YAY!

Since she's got another bag with her, I just take her back pack after thanking the counselor profusely for hanging on to it for us, sign the kids in, and head off to the commissary. I toss the back pack in the floor of the van, and off I go. And then I notice there are ants - a couple on the shelf thing between the two front seats and a couple on me. Well, that's odd. And it creeps me out - where are they coming from all of a sudden. Then out of the corner of my eye, I catch movement. Her back pack. Her backpack has ants all over it.

Great. I'm driving and so this is going to have to wait until I pull over. When I do, the outside pocket of her backpack is crawling with ants. There were potato chip crumbs in the pocket. ::Shudder:: I stick the entire backpack in a black trash bag and tie it shut. I'll figure out how to deal with it later. Then I kill every ant I can see that's in the car. There weren't too many, thank goodness. So now I'm all sweaty and I feel like there are a million bugs crawling on me so I go to the bathroom at the commissary to make sure I don't have ants crawling on the back of my shirt or yoga pants. I didn't find any. Whew! As I'm shopping, I hear my name called over the commissary loud speaker.

What? How does anyone even know I'm here? So I go to customer service where someone has turned in my dependant military id. Sigh. On the list of things to lose? This is a HUGE no-no. So, thank you times eighteen million to the very kind person that turned it in. Crikey. I finish the shopping and come home and unload the groceries. I'm still not sure how to handle the ant issue, so the bag with the back pack is in the garage. I have borax, so I may just toss some borax in the bag and let it sit. I'll take out the clothes in her back pack and wash them - but they are in ziplock bags anyway, so they should be safe. I just know that we JUST got rid of the ants in the house and I'm not anxious to have a repeat.

But I still feel like I have bugs crawling on me. Blech. So I guess the moral of this story is....know how to kill ants and thank goodness for honest people. Maybe that positive thinking karma is paying off.