Day 21 and counting

Over the last few years I have found that on particular mornings, the minute my feet hit the floor the sound of my children even breathing annoys me. On those mornings the very fact that a cupboard door is left hanging open, a light is on in an unoccupied room or the peanut butter was left out leaves me ranting and raging. Being out the door 3 minutes later than usuall will push me off the edge.

And then one rant-filled morning I had an epiphany. Maybe it isn't them. Maybe it is me. So I looked at my trusty calendar and realized that on that particular morning I was on day 21 of my blessed feminine cycle. I took note of that fact and in another 4 weeks recognized the same feeling. Holy crap. It's Day 21. So for the last couple of years I keep track of day 21 on my calendar and to be totally honest, having the awareness of the possibility of having that demonic hormone surge has actually helped me keep things under control. It also made me realize that Jessica has a day 25-28 approximately, where we would like to throttle her. Her days 25-28 put my little episodse to shame. So ladies, if you haven't figured out what your magic number is, I highly recommend doing so. It will make your family and friends, possibly co-workers much happier if you can keep the horriblemones in check.

That being said...... Here is what was going on in my house this morning. Jessica was heading out today on an overnight dog-sledding trip for school. Being her amazingly unorganized and scattered self, she left a trail of destruction and incompletion every where she went and on everything she touched this morning.

As I shut cupboard doors, turned off lights, picked up laundry off the stairs that she had moved there from the kitchen table and then stepped over as she went up to her room (yes my darling mother I do know that I did that as a teen for days at a time and yes Melany you did too :) ), I headed downstairs to take something out of the freezer for supper. Yes, all of the basement lights were on and nobody was home. As I walked into the pre-lit laundry room my eyes fell upon a scene which made my day 21 blood boil. Actually my blood would have boiled on any given day, but imagine the boost it got this morning being day 21.

I had put a load of wash in the machine last night. When I walked into the laundry room, someone (ahem aka Jessica) had opened the door, rifled through the wet laundry looking for something, pulled half of the clean wet laundry out and piled it in a heap in front of the machine. The door was open with clothes half in and half out. It reminded me of the halloween pumpkins that people carve and pull the seeds and guts out to make it look like it is throwing up. How is that for a visual?

I stomped over to the stairs and yelled up, "I am going to kill either Jessica or Nicole!!!!" Who made the mess in the laundry room???? With that Jessica came down and said, "it was me, I was going to fold that." Fold what??? Well we weren't referring to the same thing. In addition to the chaos that I was freaking out about, she had taken a bunch of dry stuff out of the dryer, threw it in a basket and put the basket of clean dry clothes amidst the baskets of dirty clothes. I said, "Not that!!!, that!!!!" and pointed to the wet mess of clean clothes. "Oh, yeah I did that too."

Needless to say I don't honestly believe I wouldn't have been any less aggravated on day 10 or 17. I spent the rest of the morning making sure she didn't leave anything laying around or turned on etc.

The other 4 kids were already waiting in the truck and Jessica was still sitting on the floor pulling on her boots. She said, "you can go wait in the truck." I advised that I would be more aggravated waiting in the truck wondering what is taking her so long, than I am actually watching what is taking her so long....

So we get in the truck, back out, proceed down the drive way almost get to the road and you hear Jessica gasp. "Now what?" "We have to go back" she says. "What did you forget now? " "My permission slip!" The one I signed a couple of days ago?" Well that was a stupid question now wasn't it?

Now we are about 7 minutes later than usual and I had some copying and stuff that I wanted to get done. I arrive at the school, go down to the school store to turn on the slushie machines, only to find that lemon lime and dripped all night and flooded the counter and the floor. Yup it's day 21 alright.

(I must say that I love my daughter Jessica dearly and she has a magical talent that I call White Tornado mode (my dad calls my mom the white tornado when she has cleaned the supper table and he is still eating LOL) and Jessica will tidy up the house leaving it spotless. I completely appreciate when she does this and I thank her for it. )

Well thank goodness tomorrow is day 22. What day is it for you?