You should have seen it....

It was a glorious, emotional, vomitous free-for-all.

What am I talking about?

Well.......it was me. Pitching a fit.

Typical summer day. 6 boys, one at VBS, looking forward to the beginning game of pool play for the tournament and I had it all under control.

The six 13 year olds were having a great time. Of course they didn't want the party to end, so one calls his mother and asks if she can come pick them up so they can all spend the night with him. Bells go off in my head. It is the youth group's lake day in the morning they have to be there early. My 10 year old is in VBS and he will be picked up at 8:20AM. It will be tight. I am always overly optimistic about time. But sure - I got this. I will just leave right after the 10 year old is picked up and go get them and pick them up from the friends house and take them on to their youth leader's house.

No big deal.

So I am up and dressed and running out the door. My hands are full of bags with swim trunks and sun screen and 2 bags of chips and brownies. I throw the chips and brownies on top of the car and set everything else down in the front seat. My intention was to get the brownies and chips off the top of the car and place them in the seat so they did not shift and get squished. Something happened in my head that made me forget to do that. Probably the dogs deciding they wanted to go upstairs and my having to go get them back down and secure the door of their pen.

So I get in the car and take off. I pull up in the driveway of my friend and I say hello and she tells me they just got up. They walk up to me. "Good Morning guys". I kind of get no response... "I am starving to death, mom." No problem we'll stop and get something on the way. What is getting me is their hair. And that stuff is not going to go down without some serious water. "Why didn't you brush your hair and your teeth?" They are THIRTEEN - that is why. "Do you want me to take you to John's looking like that?", I ask. There are going to be girls at the lake. I know they do not want to go looking like they do. "No, take us home we need to change". Ummm. It is 8:50AM - we are supposed to be there at 9:00AM. We were already going to be a little late. I have clothes in the car and tell them they can throw those on...but the hair. Dang.

What to do.

Then I realize that I don't see the brownies and chips in the seat next to me. Crap. At a stop light I put the car in park, open the door and look at the top of the car PRAYING those chips and brownies are there. Nope.

So driving home I look all along the route. They are not there. How in the world can I show up LATE without the brownies and the chips I said I was going to bring?

The poo hits the fan. I  explode in the car in front of my twin 13 year olds. I seriously feel like banging my head against the steering wheel repeatedly. I manage to say things like - "DO I HAVE TO THINK FOR EVERYONE?", "SHOULD I HAVE TO CALL YOU AND TELL YOU TO BRUSH YOUR HAIR AND TEETH?" and YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO COMMIT ME SOON IF SOMEONE DOESN'T START HELPING ME HANDLE ALL OF THIS MESS". All the while I am still scouting for the brownies in the road. I can replace the chips...but not those delicious brownies.

Let me tell you about those brownies. They were just right. I let them cool before I cut them and they were in perfect squares stacked on the cutest paper plate and I was PROUD of them.

My righteousness on a plate.

So I get home and my husband calls and I am CRYING - no - not crying - I can hardly speak to him I am sobbing so much. I finally get out the words about how late we are and that the BROWNIES are on the road somewhere. He says it will be ok. Get the boys and go to John's.

Some small sanity returns and I mentally hitch up my britches and thumb my nose. I hear a still, small voice ask me what is important.

Well...not those brownies I can tell you that. My boys are scared of me right now. I have one of them (the sensitive one) on the verge of tears himself. I am a raving lunatic over brownies and being late.

Why?

Because it makes me proud of myself. It defines me and I am failing at it.

Plain and simple.

Misplaced my efforts...again.

So I adjust my thinking. I tell them both I am sorry. We get our ducks in a row. I get them in the car and we get to John's. Thirty minutes late.

And guess what?

It is OK.

I have talked to God. I am pleasantly exhausted now. I think I am going to take a nap and start over again in an hour.

  

P.S. I found the brownies in the road on my way home from dropping the boys off. They were face down...a little smushed...but they still were in the bag and they tasted great. Had 3 of them.