The Cereal Wars

I feel like that's the name of a movie--a Star Wars spoof of some kind. Anyway. If someone made a movie of our house on mornings we have the kids, that would be its title.

My boss isn't going to be in today (hurrah!) so I felt I could be a few minutes late (correction: fewer minutes early), and walk the kids to school today. I came upstairs, Guy was making their lunches, Girl was making crazy faces, and Boy was reading one of those giant books based on Disney movies. Girl really desperately wanted Shredded Oat Squares (or whatever the hell they're called--basically a health food version of Life). I called to Boy, would he like the same thing? I got a kind of absent-minded yes, so I went and asked again just in case he hadn't been paying attention. "I said yes," he calls.

Of course, once he sat down, it turned into "I hate this cereal." "Then why did you say you wanted it?" "I was reading! You can't expect me to answer questions when I'm reading!" (shouted).

And it escalated from there. Reminder: I had not yet had my coffee.

Girl took up the flag of Cereal Hatred (though, if you'll recall, she had been dancing with joy at the thought of having Shredded Oat Squares for breakfast), and declared that it was making her ill. Girl gets a tummyache every morning right about a third of the way through breakfast. It's uncanny.

Furthermore, I was getting a little panicked at the thought of maybe not getting to work exactly on time--shudder, even five minutes late--and was trying to hurry things along, and getting annoyed with Guy who was, ahem, not trying to hurry things along, but wanted to sit and enjoy his coffee for a moment. Please. Like there's time in the world to do that.

I hustled the kiddies downstairs, brushed their teeth if not their hair, and managed to brush my own as well. We made it out the door without Maud escaping, thank goodness (ah yes--another aging kitten flaw: she longs for freedom. Shoulda left her in the trailer park with the tormenting two year old), and into the wet walk in the rain. I'm sure both Boy and Girl are at this exact moment complaining of starvation.