Why I need a drink

Each day, It takes me probably only 45 minutes from the time I leave work until I pull up in our driveway; however, during that 45 minutes, one if not all of the following will happen:

Rowan (god love'im) will be happy to see me and will demonstrate this by trying to hug my eyeballs. With his teeth.

Hopper will either run up and yell, "MOMMY, IT IS SO NICE TO SEE YOU!" or, he will find a piece of lego and/or playground equipment that has previously not been spied/played with in the preceding 9 hours he has been at daycare  that he could have spied/played with and he will immediately need to spy/play with it before leaving while I hold his 25lb brother who is still scratching my corneas.

When I finally convince Hopper to leave, this cooperation will last approximately one and a half minutes til we reach the car. Then Hopper will lock me out of the front seat while I put Rowan in the Backseat Baby Prison (i.e. car seat).

Rowan usually protests strapping in of any kind unless I can bribe him with yogurt melts in the cup holder. I remember this about once every 15 days.

I manage to crawl through the back of the car, unlock the front door and extract Hopper from the drivers seat where he has managed to turn on every turn signal, windshield wiper and emergency light on the dashboard, including some that I had not known previously existed on my car and I have been driving it for six years.

Once I get Hopper wrangled into his carseat, we have about 20 seconds of driving before Hopper insists on listening to one of Mr. Neal's Songs. Mr. Neal is their music teacher at daycare who runs a little outfit called the Groundwork Music Orchestra. Go ahead, click and give them some love. As kids' music goes, it's not so bad (YES, it is!), It's not so bad (YES, it is!)... sorry, that's a song from the cd that may or may not be entitled "Bone Soup" but Hopper just refers to it as the "NOT SO BAD SONG". I wouldn't really know how good or bad it is because I haven't been able to listen to anything else to compare it to for close to a year now. Goddamn you, Mr. Neal.

Usually during whichever song is playing, Hopper will laugh and say, "Mr. Neal So Crazy!"  just like that which for whatever reason always makes me immediately think of that Salt N Pepa/En Vogue song "Whatta Man" where they say, "You so crazy, I think I wanna have your baby" and I start singing that song until Hopper sticks his finger out at me and says, very sternly, "Stop singing, Mommy."

We then have to listen whatever Mr. Neal song Hopper has proclaimed to be the song of the day as many damned times as is possible between leaving daycare and arriving home. I will fully admit to running more than a few yellow lights to cut this down to a manageable number. I've been able to determine that in the 11 minutes the trip takes (on a good day), I only have to listen to "Ride My Giraffe" 3 1/2 times.

We arrive home and I let Hopper out first. He will either make a beeline for the front door OR attempt to strip naked and run into the neighbors yard OR find a dead snake, one of those three. EVERY DAY.

Once I finally get Hopper into the house, I remember that Rowan is still in Backseat Baby Prison and bring him in too.  Then it's snacks and watching some Thomas while I feed the dogs and it USED TO BE all pretty manageable. Until recently.

Recently, I go into the kitchen to feed the dogs and I come out less than a minute later to find something like this:

Ro on top of the dining table. Being a menace.

So, yeah.  That's my son who barely knew how to WALK a month ago climbing on top of tall pieces of furniture where he likes to either empty out grocery bags or chew on ink pens. 

I take that back: I don't need a drink. I need several.