Oh no, the phone is ringing before 8 am!

It's never good if the phone rings before 8 am. I heard it ring, that is to say, my cell phone ring tone went off. (remember the days when a phone actually RANG? Or the time you actually had to DIAL a number - still love that clicky-scratchy sound the old rotary phone dials make ...) And the first thought in my head was crap. that's not good. Don't answer, don't answer!

It wasn't a reminder for a medication, it wasn't an alarm for 20 minutes for required reading and it wasn't a five minute timer for a time out. Nope. This was a genuine phone call at 7:40, my planned departure time to leave the house to get Sissy to the pdoc. My mind willing me to resist the urge to mash the talk button, my reflex arc betrayed me and the next thing I knew my ear was listening to a voice telling me what I perceive as "bad news."

Sissy and I had set our alarms for an extra 30 minutes this morning so we could get up, do morning routines and leave on time. This took pre-planning, lots of verbal prompting (because Sissy and AB do NOT do change well), coercion, bribing and nagging. I intended to do like I did last week with AB which was keep all of Sissy's appointments, her annual physical was scheduled for 10:30, in one day to minimize tardies and absences. That was my I'm-the-best-mom-in-the-whole-world stellar plan.

Except the dang phone rang at 7:40. The pdoc's office was calling to say he wasn't coming in.

*sound of needle scratching on vinyl record*

I made a minimal protest with the receptionist, got out the planner to reschedule and hung up. crap. if we keep the 10:30 appointment, it will mean Sissy misses TWO school days in two weeks. With our special kids, you have to keep these absences as low as possible because they invariably get sicker more often in addition to having so many appointments. Sissy already has several late days on her record this year for rages and panic attacks. so... do I just send her to school?

Quick consult with The Dad. He agreed.

And that put the scream machine in motion.

For the second morning in a row.

We finally talked Sissy out of her tree (really, if I made a political cartoon of her antics, she'd be a baboon swinging from the top of some crazily insane tree, screeching and hollering and pounding her chest and making a royal hoopla for the WHOLE JUNGLE to hear.) And the jungle DID hear it. At least the jungle that lives under this roof.

AB was annoyed and then WG figured out she wouldn't be riding to school in The Dad's truck so she started in and then The Dad and I were trying to negotiate over the cacophony about the best plan for getting all THREE of them to school with minimal screaming which admittedly, sounded a little like screaming too.

Fun times.

Somehow, like clowns in a VW bug, The Dad herded all three of them into the little two door pickup, backpacks and all and drove them off to school with only AB still making protests. Somehow all three of them managed to leave here with all homework, all books, their snacks and their dollars for the fundraiser this morning. Somehow. I'm not sure how and I no longer think i can claim it as my best-mom-in-the-whole-world status. I think it was by pure luck, strong will and The Dad's determination to get the screaming jungle to move to another location, which in this case is a mile down the road and in a brick building disguised as a place of education.

Sissy has two tests.

*snicker*

Which is likely the cause for her wild rumpus in the first place.

Oh, if only the pdoc knew the mayhem that ensued after his receptionist's phone call before 8 am. Nothing good EVER comes from those calls. Nothing.