Old Ladies and YES

This morning was a little bit different than the usual Thursday morning. Mikie had a follow-up ear check from his month ago eardrum rupture, so even though I made his lunch & made sure he had his backpack packed, Mike didn't have the rush this morning cause his appointment was at 9:30a.

Jack did his thing, got himself all situated and ready for school. When we realized his boots were left at school I told him I'd just take him this morning. So that gave him some extra time. I'm realizing that those few extra minutes can be deceiving :) As the time frame was closing in, we felt the rush. I asked Jack if his snowpants were in his backpack and he said they were. I was trying to get Mike to get his socks on and coat so he'd be all ready (it's "pajama day" at school so Mike was in his flame pj bottoms and a t-shirt).

Jack headed out the front door and Molly went out on the porch to grab her coat. As I'm doing a final inventory I see Jack's snowpants on the chair. I yell to him to come back in. I threw some 'tude his way for not being honest, for just answering me with what he thought I wanted to hear, not really hearing the question. He looked shocked, completely unintentional, he thought they were packed in there, assuming I had done it. So he quickly packed up his snowpants and gave me a long face and headed out again. As Molly was coming back inside the door, it shut on her legs and she toppled over. There she lay. Jack standing right there by the door just watching her. So I got after him again for not helping her. "No matter what the situation, you always help someone up!" So he did.

I was ready at that point (it should be noted that running late can be a quick ticket to TICKED OFF ERNIE) to kick some rear end. But I reigned myself back in and took a deep breath, knowing I'd say something I shouldn't and probably pound my "point" into the ground. So I encouraged the kids to get in the truck, looked at Bean with a "can you believe it?" face and we headed out.

Since a few minutes had passed, I had the opportunity to use a different voice. A much more encouraging tone and not angry, to explain where I was coming from. So while staring at Mike in the rear view, I told the kids this...

"To all 3 of you, when you see someone who has fallen, help them up. If you saw an old woman laying on the sidewalk cause she just slipped on the ice, you wouldn't leave her there cause it wasn't your fault. You'd help, right? This is the same case, be it you shut the door on Molly or not, you help her up. Always. And... make this your mission, when you say yes, make sure you know what you're saying it for. Don't just say yes, but when you say it, you mean it." As we made the turn into town, I followed it all up by saying this,

"Always help the old lady and let your yes mean YES!" I went from looking at Mike in the rear view to Jack and saw him smile.

After we dropped Jack at school, we headed to the dollar store to get some cupcake holders. The school carnival is Saturday and we've got a lot of cupcakes to make and transport for the cakewalk. When we pulled in, we saw that they didn't open for another 15 minutes. Mike didn't wanna wait, he would rather sit at the doctor's office. I made an executive and we sat there in the warm truck and waited. We saw an old woman walk up to the door at 8:59a and start knocking repeatedly on the glass door. We sat there watching her in shock... how RUDE! So we gave it a few minutes and saw the old woman finally let in at 9am (I'm sure she felt it was the longest minute of her life). No cupcake holders, but we did get some decorations for the cupcakes, ohh and each of the kids a ball.

On over to the doctor's office where Mike and Molly wanted to bring their new balls in. I figured why not, and gave Mike the warning "but you can't get too carried away." Bounce, bounce, bounce, under the lady reading the magazine in peace's chair his ball went. Then he wanted to play catch, etc. Molly just sat there holding hers, fearing it would roll away. We got called on back and Mikie's ear check showed that he still has 2 infected ears, so a double ear infection for him! The doc asked Mike what the deal was with the ball :) I had him check Molly's ears too and she has a bad one and fluid in the other. What the BEAK!?! So he wrote up 2 scripts and as we were leaving I mentioned Mike's Spring Concert to the doc. I told him, while looking over and grinning at Mikie, that "Mike was the only one out of 50 or 60 kids who wore sunglasses." Mikie quickly corrected me by saying, "No, there are 14 kids in the DK class, 21 in my class and 19 in the A class, so that's a total of... 54. There were 54 kids, Mom." I looked over at the doc and he looked at me, almost shocked. As a proud momma, I quickly said, "both boys are really good at math!" He smiled and shook his head.