You OK, Mom?

Driving my girls to school this morning with the bright sun rudely pointing out how dirty my truck windows are and traffic acting like a four-way stop is as puzzling as a Rubik's Cube, my 13 year old asks me, "Are you okay?"

Am I okay? Hmm?? Let's see ... "Yep, I'm fine," is all I decide to muster. Of course she asks again, knowing full well I'm lying through my teeth.

"Are you sure?" "Honey, I'm fine," I respond, determined to not to say anything I might regret. But as they both leave the truck and into their school buildings, I drive away thinking, am I okay?

Um, no, actually I'm not okay! I woke up perfectly fine, and even early! The sun was up and birds were singing, all was well. Then, I don't know what happened, but between the time the girls woke up and the time we left the house, things just went south and I went from cheery to crabby, just like that!

It's hard to pinpoint really. Perhaps it was the fact that the 9-year-old chose to lounge out on the couch in her pajamas and watch TV for 25 minutes instead of getting dressed or preparing for school.

Therefore, with 10 minutes left before we have to leave, she's trying to get on her shoes that won't tie right, brush her teeth, get her hair curled because, of course, its picture day, and get her contacs in, which is my job.

All while I'm trying to finish getting ready myself. So with 5 minutes left, she throws together a lunch, which I have no idea what concoction that consisted of, tossed yesterday's school papers on the counter, but ran out of time to make her daily water bottle.

Her bed wasn't made and her pajamas and blankie laid on the living room floor, a long side her empty milk cup. More crap I'll have to pick up during my lunch hour. AND she forgot her reading book which she informs me as we're half way to school. Of course you did ...

Or, I don't know, maybe I'm grouchy because the 13 year old acts she has three hours to get ready every morning, but in reality has less than one. Even if she gets up 30 minutes early, she still manages to still be rushing around right as we need to leave the house. She spent 20 minutes eating breakfast and scrolling through her social page, chatting with her best friends about whether or not they should bring a lunch or if they should wear sweats or shorts, braided hair or straightened. Could we not have this all decided prior to 40 minutes before school starts??

So then she spent the rest of the 35 minutes racing around the house, rifling through the dirty clothes baskets in search of some "special" pair of shorts (which means dumping them out in various rooms), requesting help from her older sister for intricate braided hair style, which never turns out right and I know will get ripped out 20 minutes later, barely grazed her teeth with a toothbrush and flew out the door with crucial homework papers shoved in the pockets of her backpack at the last minute.

After I went around and shut off all the lights they left on, I caught glimpses of the rooms left disarray in my house due the tornadoes that these girls caused this morning.

There's half-finished cereal bowls on the kitchen counter that will be a real treat to deal with by lunch, random pairs of shoes that apparently were tried on but didn't match flung about the living room, sweatshirts and jackets that were cleared out of backpacks to make room for lunch bags laying helplessly on the couch wishing they were hung up, and toast crumbs scattered all over the kitchen table along with someone's forgotten vitamins and half drank apple juice.

Hmm? And they wonder why I wasn't feeling so chipper when we sped off to school this morning? Sure doesn't seem to bother them! What's my problem anyway?!

Must be too picky or something ... man, I can't wait to get home at lunch and face it all again!