Sorry I'm late. It's my mom's fault.

Aliza was tardy today.  I hate that word.  It sounds so much more obscene than just saying "late."

She forgot her homework at school yesterday so I thought there was nothing for her to do last night.  But I forgot about the weekly spelling.

She is supposed to work on her spelling words every night.  I knew it, but I didn't realize that is actually homework she is required to turn in.  I thought it was just a friendly, helpful suggestion.  If she doesn't do her spelling homework, she has to stay in during recess and do it.  She enlightened me with this information this morning.

So this morning at the moment we are putting on shoes and jackets, she discovers we (and I say "we", because it's my job to help her remember to do homework, right?) forgot to do her spelling work.   Today it's word pyramids.  You know, like this:

"Dang nabbit!" I say in my continuing effort not to curse in front of the children.  Aliza looks soap-opera tragic; the tears begin to well up.  "All right, calm down, we'll sit and do them quick right now."

She whips out 10 word pyramids.  Then we look for shoes when suddenly she looks up and says "I can't wear jeans today.  We have gym and I can't run in jeans."  Which makes very little sense when I've seen her run in jeans plenty of times, I know it is possible....but arguing will take more time than changing.  So I find her some decent stretchy pants.

Do you think after this we could put on a pair of nice and easy slip-on crocs?  Of course not!  Tennis shoes, whose laces have to be loosened, then tightened again, then tied in double knots.  Easily a 4-minute effort.

We drive to school and I warn her I'm going to have to walk her in to the office because we are running late.  I avoid using the word "tardy."  It upsets us both.  I'm keenly aware that I haven't done my hair or makeup yet today and now I'm going to walk into the school office and see real people, but it can't be helped.

When we park and start to walk in to the school I quit worrying about my lack of neatened hair or made-up face, because I'm pretty sure my neon-green house shoes are going to draw more attention than anything else I might have going on.

It can only get better from here, right?

(This whole post is just an excuse to use these cool sticky notes I found at http://wigflip.com/superstickies/.)