Just a Typical School Morning

So, the good news is that even though Alex wore a Timmy diaper to bed last night because we had no Good Nite. pull ups ("But Alex, last night you wore no pull-up and you didn't wet the bed, right?" "Sure, I wet the bed, Mom!" Maternal glance at the bed where Dunc is already tucked in--"Oh."), he woke and got up at 1am to pee on his own, which is progress.The bad news is that Dunc, who has worn underpants to bed for over a year, wet himself at 1:30am. The worst news is that both these things involved kids thumping to the bathroom at 1am and 1:30am, respectively, and required my help to help a half-asleep kid aim and not get wet or help a half-asleep kid who's wet get dry, but at least the better news is that I was still up anyway since K got up to nurse just around midnight and I knew the night would be something like this because Jake is gone--when he's here, nothing much happens. I was still up at midnight because I had to fill out Cory's emergency cards and a bunch of forms for her and G, and then remembered that on his way to bed around 10 I asked Liam if he had khakis for school tomorrow and he answered, miraculously, "Yup!"
"Great--and they're ironed?"
"Well, no, though they do really need it." The Lord giveth miracles, and he taketh away.
I felt really bad about LT hefting his trombome to the train station (a ten-minute walk with a huge backpack) for the first jazz emsemble rehearsal, so I had him take the earlier train this morning (6:56am instead of 7:31) so that I could drive him and his trombone the three minutes to the station while Cory was still here to technically serve as supervision (in Jake's start-of-school-year-you've-got-to-be-kidding-me absence) for a bunch of sleeping kids and still get back before Cory had to be at the corner for her bus. I found out I could have left a full six minutes later and still gotten him there on time because when we pulled up and he lugged his trombone, music stand, and backpack so full that he'd been unable to fit his lunch inside, I realized I was not seeing the lunch. He left it at home, and it being a lab day he could not buy lunch in the cafeteria because they were supposed to bring lunch and eat it in lab period, because "lab" is his Tuesday lunch period. (How this fits with the rule about "No eating or drinking in the laboratory" he was tested on is another story--Liam tried to explain that part of the room is "classroom" and the lab tables are the "lab" but I opted to only pay attention to the bottom line, which was that we should have bagels or some other lunch food available every Monday night.) So I gave him some cash just in case I didn't make it back in time so that he could attempt to buy lunch today if necessary and made a dash for the lunch box, making it back in six minutes. (For those who are getting ready to lecture me on speeding, rest assured I did not make it to the South Orange station you're probably familiar with, but the much-closer Mountain Station, mere blocks away.) Liam was still there, though apparently I might have been helped by a slightly late train.
Somewhere in here I remembered that if he stayed after school for jazz, he wouldn't have a shuttle bus to take him to the station, which left him with a 1.2 mile walk, so I offered to go pick him up but because G gets off the bus at 3:30 and jazz ends at 3:40 and school is 20 minutes away, I'd be there a little after band ended.
"Fine, I'll wait at After School in the cafeteria."
"Don't I need to send in a form or something for that?"
"I don't think so."
Quick check to Edline (I love Edline) and sure enough, there's a form. Luckily, these being high schoolers, I didn't have to give a full medical and developmental history back to the womb with a list of the social security numbers of anyone who might be picking him up and their security clearances, just a basic signature stating that my son understands the purpose of After School and I would sign him out when I pick him up.
Wait--sign him out? Like, park the car and get out? With up to seven kids along? Ugh...Maybe Grandma would come by a little early for her pre-PhD tea and get G off the bus so I could go get Liam directly from jazz without any after school signing ins/outs, gotta think about that one while standing in front of the house watching Cory at the corner waiting for her bus... And now Dunc is up, telling me knock-knock jokes that all end with me knocking my head into the nearest hard surface because it hurts less, and I have to get up G, and then it's just me and five kids off to Shoprite. But the good news is I just had a four hour nap a little while ago, so I feel quite rested.

Water and phones and... well, just read it.

Jake here. One of my brothers posted [something like] this to our family email group:

Does anyone have an old cell phone? A young lady dropped [redacted]'s into some Gatorade today at the track meet. Sure we could ask them to replace it, but I figured it's pretty likely that _someone_ has a 3-5 year old phone they are not using. :)

Here's Sue's response:

Maybe I'm missing something, or maybe it's just a Verizon thing, but at any given time folks usually are eligible for free or $10 phone deals from their carrier (with the usual two-year-we-own-you contract or similar thing.) I mean, if my kids were to drop my phone in liquid they'd end up landing on your front lawn after I drop-kicked them, but then I would log in to the wireless folks and see a host of free phones ready and waiting. It's not the cost of replacing, see, it's the fact that Timmy has been TOLD over and OVER and OVER not to TOUCH the dog's water bowl, or the dog's food bowl, or to dump the latter into the former, or to try to carry every mug he finds to some adult who must want "Hot Tea!" or "Hot Coffee!" (I TOLD Jake it wasn't a cute idea to let Timmy have his own plastic mug of lukewarm tea because it would lead to just this sort of stupidity, but did Jake listen? Noooooooo....) or to consider any cup with any amount of liquid in it his personal chance for waterplay, so when of course he once again fails to heed all these Don't Dump, Touch, Dispense, Look At or Stand Near the Water rules while illegally holding my phone it is necessary that he show some remorse so I can mistake his displeasure with my displeasure as some hint that he might actually learn to stop creating puddles in my HOUSE and stop messing with my STUFF, when in fact he is neither truly remorseful or truly learning anything except that next time he needs to make the puddle bigger, faster, because Mom is clearly not happy with the small puddles. The cost of a new phone is not the major factor in my fury.