Tikkabik

7AM. Time to wake up Emmeline. She's a heavy sleeper.

"Emmeline."

Nothing.

"EMMELINE."

Still nothing.

"EMMELINE!"

"What?!"

Get up. Time to get ready.

I resume my normal routine -- I'm starting to check around for stories to post. Ten minutes pass by before I realize that Emmeline hasn't stirred.

"EMMELINE!"

She sits upright in bed, and slowly starts to move. Her bus typically gets here between 7:25 and 7:30. She needs to be up and ready by then. She's now got 15 minutes to brush her hair, brush her teeth, get breakfast, get dressed. Not necessarily in that order.

Ten minutes pass by, and she emerges from her room. She hasn't brushed her hair yet, and she's wearing a pair of mismatched socks. She doesn't believe me when I tell her that she looks silly. Finally I get Bonnie to throw down a pair of her own socks to wear.

Again, this has shaved precious minutes off the clock. Emmeline now has no time for breakfast -- not even a bowl of cold cereal. Wendy, her van driver, is going to be here any second.

As a compromise, to get something in her stomach, I recommend a cereal bar or two. This is unacceptable. Apparently Emmeline finds the four different flavors of cereal bar (strawberry, blueberry, peanut butter and oats, chocolate and oats) to be unacceptable choices. She stands there staring at me, looking stricken, mouth agape, tears welling up in her eyes with the unfairness of it all.

At this point I lose my temper and start screaming. I've had quite enough of this shit, thank you.

Meantime, the sink's overflowing with dishes from last night's dinner, because the kids have neglected the one daily chore that we insist that they do: Empty the dishwasher. Not fill the dishwasher, mind you. Just empty the goddamn thing. And Robert has left for school already, so the other two are on strike. After all, with one sibling gone, neither of them can be expected to make up the difference.

There's no room in the sink for me to rinse and fill the coffee pot, so the coffee has to wait until I clear the dishwasher, fill it up and start it again.

As I'm doing this, Wendy pulls up, and Emmeline grabs her things to go. "I need seven dollars," she says as an afterthought.

"What for?" I ask incredulously.

"A book."

"Well, I don't *have* seven dollars," I tell her. "If you'd asked me yesterday, I might have been able to get some. But I don't have any cash."

"Oh well," she says in a huff. "I guess I'll just have to tell the teacher!"

So it's turning out to be one of those days.