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e shoes?

"let's make music, mommy!"
the three-day weekend (and last week's oddball hurricane-induced schedulelessness) wrecked any semblance of morning routine chez john.

getting ready for work this morning, it was like i had completely forgotten how to go about the normal preparations. do i brush my teeth now? no, wait, eat breakfast first. THEN brush teeth. did i give the dog his medicine? am i wearing two shoes? (looking down) ok, got the shoes. 

poor john wasn't faring much better. he slept late, and when he woke up, the first thing he said to me was "i want to go back to sleep." he got dressed no problem, but he flipped his lid when i tried to put his shoes on. he did not want to wear the black sneakers. he did not want to wear his chuck taylors. he did not want to wear his elmo shoes. he only wanted "e shoes." 

the problem? i have no earthly idea what e shoes are. NO idea. i tried to discuss with him and figure it out ... but that just resulted in him yelling, "bad mommy!" at the top of his lungs.

finally, i just had to shove the black sneakers on his feet, tell him to be a big boy and stop crying, and we went to mommy's room to finish getting ready.

fortunately, while i put makeup on (did i already do mascara? no? ok, time for mascara.) he found the radio we listened to during the hurricane, and since his newfound favorite activity is "making music," that helped us pull ourselves together and get out the door on time, believe it or not. 

and from there the day DID start to look up. halfway to school, john said, "they have breakfast at school, mommy?" and when i said yes, he clapped and cheered.

and he happily came into his classroom and settled in to start the day.

and then, surprisingly, i remembered how to get to work and how to open my office and how to start the day.

not bad for a (quasi) monday.

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