Morning Chaos…

This last week our family had to get up a little earlier than normal to drive out to Bountiful for the funeral of my Grandfather. In an effort to hurry things along I tried to get as much ready the night before as possible. I gave the kids a bath, and even put them to bed in their church clothes so that we could just wake up, have breakfast, and go! I wrapped up a little gift for my Grandmother (a statue of Christ with outstretched arms), made a card from all the members of my family, and got the diaper bag, camera, and other necessities packed and put in the car.

However, unfortunately NOTHING went quite as smoothly as I imagined the next morning. It all started off kind of rough when Branson came down and told us he had had an “accident” in pretty much the only church clothes we own that fit him. Now, normally this wouldn’t have been that big of a deal, but let me just tell you that Branson RARELY if EVER has accidents. The kid is almost 5 years old. So the fact that he did have an accident on this very important day is just a little bit crazy to me. But then the chain reaction continues….

To add insult to injury Branson throws an absolute FIT, because he REALLY REALLY wants to wear his suit to the funeral (Yes the one he just peed in). I try to calmly explain to him that he won’t be able to wear the suit because it is now reeking of urine. But he is ADAMANT that its all good because he changed his skivvy’s, so he can still wear the suit, right?! Uh No. Sorry Dude. Aint gonna happen. I do have some dignity as a mother!

So I help him pick out another acceptable outfit, but unfortunately thats NOT what he wants to wear, and we are back on the suit issue. So another battle ensues. Another argument emerges. All the while I’m trying to change 2 other little boys diapers, get myself dressed, put my hair in curlers, do my makeup, get all the kids breakfast, etc. etc. etc.

The battle ends, when Mom gets sick of asking Branson 500 zillion times to please put on the outfit just to have him ignore her, and she finally just grabs him and puts the pants, shirt, and tie on for him while he kicks and screams.

But it of course doesn’t end there and Brans and Mom end up getting into another battle when Brans doesn’t want to wear the tie Mommy got him and tries to put on a different tie instead (which happens to be Man’s grown up tie and of the wrong color). So. Not. Going. To. Happen!

Mom is at her wits end by now and asks Dad to take over so she can go and get herself dressed.

I do have to mention one funny little story though. After I got all 3 of the boys breakfast I left the kitchen and hurried and put hot curlers in my hair so that my hair could be curling while I did my makeup and got dressed. When I went back into the kitchen a little while later Harry was completely in a trance staring at the curlers in my hair as I busily attempted to get my own breakfast ready. He then all the sudden perks up and says, “Mommy, you look reeeaaaallly pitty (pretty).” In which Branson’s reply is, “Ummm, I don’t think so Harry! She doesn’t look pretty with those things in her hair at all!” It totally cracked me up. Our two boys are so different!

So anyway, we keep busily trying to get out the door but things keep going wrong and we end up being over 20 minutes late to get out the door. Just as we are leaving, I notice that Harrison’s hair hasn’t yet been combed and I plop him up on my bathroom counter top to slick down his hair and give it a good comb through. When I go to spray Harry-bob’s hair though he starts flailing his arms and ends up spilling my breakfast drink all over the counter which subsequently gets all over his clothes. Ahhhhh! So yet again I got to completely strip down Harrison just to find him another outfit to wear to the funeral.

We booked it up to bountiful as fast as we dared go without getting a speeding ticket, had to turn around once for taking a wrong street, but we arrived RIGHT at the exact time we were told to be there. Only guess what? There was hardly anyone there. Huh? Say what? It ends up that we didn’t get the memo that the funeral actually started at 10:15 (not 9:15 like we had been told). So we were actually an hour early. All I could do was laugh…