You'll miss all this when they go to college...

Roz and Max finally made it out the front door, after another morning of non-stop excitement before the school bus got here. Only three rounds of "She's wearing my shoes!" "Can anyone help me find my belt?" "Why aren't you wearing your sweater?" were needed before the girls headed out. And this when its only the last week of school and their final exams are underway (it's language today, so much muttering of present tense, feminine gender nouns and verbs was happening throughout the getting-ready phase.) "Why are these clothes lying on the floor?" I hear the LW's voice from the children's bedroom and try hard not to smile as the kids turn around on the stairs to yell back "I love you!"

The LW and I have tried, even without the grandparents helping or providing useful comments, to get the girls into a morning routine (you can see how successful that has been!) - no I don't refer to the screaming we do each morning - "Did you fill your water bottle? Did you pack your lunch box? Do you have money the cafeteria? What about the change for the telephone?" The routine I talk of, begins the previous night with "Do you have everything ready for school?"

You'd think as kids who can narrate every scene in last month's favorite episode of "The Sweet Life of Zack & Cody" or what Aishwarya Rai was wearing in her first scene in Dhoom 2, Roz and Max would remember stuff relating what's needed for school tomorrow. You'd be wrong! After dinner, just as the LW and I are getting ready to sit down to do some reading, Max would remember she needs blue-colored chart paper (of course right after the local stationery store has closed.) Max would discover homework that she should have done, and now she can't go to bed without doing it. And that is on a good evening. Finally the homework is done, promises have been extracted to go to the stationery store in the morning before the school bus gets here at 715AM (the stationer lives behind the store) and admonitions about "make sure your schoolbags are ready, I don't want to hear any whining in the morning about socks, shoes or school badges" made before we get the two of 'em in bed and the lights turned out. Some more "Girls! Quit talking (loud giggles follow) and better get to sleep" on my part results in bouts of silence and usually the LW & I fall asleep I suspect before the girls call it a night!

Despite all the reminders of the previous night, some fairy seems to wipe my children's near term memory banks so that when they wake up, it's usually "I can't find _____" (pick your favorite thing, that they put out last night but now can't find) delivered in that particularly shrill tone intended to set every parental nerve ending quivering. Of course now we have a new parental litany - "Drink your milk," "I thought you polished your shoes last night? Don't just stand there - and while you are at it, polish your sister's shoes as well." "Wear your sweater." Anita Renfroe said it best in her "Mom's song" set to the William Tell Overture

-