Crunchy Eyes

Getting our girls ready for school and out the door on time every morning is purely ridiculous. Three ideas of style parading in and out of their closets as though we're at Paris fashion week. Three heads of hair, an expansive collection of hair bows, and three trusty ponytail holders that see way more action than any of the bows ever do. Only because they can be shoved into a shirt-on/shirt-off static-charged mess of hair as they fly off the last step of the porch on the run to the bus.

Chaos reigns 'round here, Monday through Friday, from 7--8:11am. They yell a lot, they fight over the hairbrushes and the toothpaste and who is stupider than a fly, and I threaten several times to send them to school looking like derelicts. Everyone is hungry and no one likes what we have for breakfast, and I swear they lay awake at night planning how to make me nutty, just as they swear I lay awake at night  planning how to be the meanest Momma ever. And this is the bright side of our school mornings. This is the part that flows. If you actually had to sit here through the entire process, just once, I promise you would have an other-worldly appreciation for how long and painful 77 minutes actually is in real time.

Today was worse than normal. Way. But, just when Ryan was banging his heels together and whispering "There's no place like work...." and I was furiously trying to  wish my coffee into wine...right then Nikki looked up at her Daddy and burst out laughing like she was going to pee herself. She has the best laugh--total maniacal hyena in the house type. Laughter like that honestly is good medicine. Frustration dissolved a little, irritation came down juuuuust enough, and we laughed with her for a second. When she got herself under control enough to tell us what was so funny, this was it: "Daddy's eyes crunch all up!!!!" followed by more hyena he-haws. Ryan told her that's what happens when you get old. I could see the image of his eyes squinted up when he smiles or laughs burn into her memory right then. Years from now she won't remember the utter lunacy of this morning, but she will think about Ryan and that is what she will see in her minds eye--"Daddy's eyes crunched all up!!!!" and I love that! <3