“Are you freaking kidding me?” That was my response this morning when my 10 year old told me that the 8 year old had left the garage door up the entire night.
Of course he the older brother was eager, and beaming with joy just to be able to tell me about his little brother’s forgetfulness. I mean, they each live for moments when the other one slips up and make a mistake that they know is gonna cause mommy to loose it. I could hear the smirk on his face, yes, hear, as he said it again.
Even the 21 month old knew what was about to go down because he immediately stopped mid stride and busted a u-turn to get out of my way. I had to laugh a little at that, but quickly regained my serious face because I had a conversation with the the older two boys about keeping my garage door down.
Allow me to explain my strong desire to jeep my garage door down. On Saturday a new family move next door, by Sunday evening, I had met the mom and learned a lot more about them than I cared to. You know how you can tell from one conversation that a person had way too much drama in their lives? Yeah, well, I knew from our first meeting that I would be keeping my garage door from fear of her coming over asking for something.
So now, you can imagine why I was upset with my second born for leaving my garage door up all night long. Not only that, but I shutter at the thought of what creature from the night had been lurking in my garage all night long. I started to curse, but since mama is seriously trying to work on her potty mouth (I feel your judgment as I type), I didn’t cuss, but I did fuss at him to finish getting dressed so we could assess his situation. I should note that my second born is half human and half snail. He’s the last one to get out of everything when I’m trying to herd the three of them out. Cat hearding at it’s finest, I swear!
Well my oldest couldn’t wait to rub it in that we had indeed had a visitor because it had left the evidence all over the garage. Apparently, a raccoon plundered through a trash bag that was in the garage and had a party. “You have got to be kidding me!” 🤦🏾 The plan I had in my mind for us getting out of the house early, did not include cleaning up after a raccoon. I’m not a rookie parent, so I should’ve known that there’s no such thing as as a plan, just adaptability.
As you can imagine, my second born was dragging his feet about cleaning up, but also eager to see a raccoon in the garage. We usually see a few of them every day hanging with the stray cats near a storm drain eating the cat’s food like they’re all at Thanksgiving day dinner.
I’ve also had to chase one off of my porch once after he decided to steal my cat’s food out of the feeder. We no longer have cats because one died naturally and I accidentally backed over the other one (again, I feel you judging me). My oldest calls me a cat murderer still.
After getting the garage cleaned, we still managed to leave the house with time to spare, and to prove that I’m not the fun police, I took them to get breakfast so that they didn’t have to eat breakfast at school because they’re “so over school food.” Now, I’m just going to have to be sure that someone remembered too press the freaking button to shut the garage door from now on… on top of the million other items on my to-do list.
Truly, She's Trying 
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