Call me Mommie Dearest.

Nothing like a good dose of guilt to kick off a Monday morning! Now, granted, one might’ve expected me, as the adult in the equation, to exhibit a little bit more grace in this scenario. I blame a restless night, and the shameless pilfering of my last ten minutes of snoozing. My last ten minutes of snoozing are sacrosanct, even if you’re 4 and rumple-headed and sort of cute when you’re cranky.

But seriously? When one requests a smiley face on one’s Pop-Tart “Not because I want it to be special but because I want it to be happy,” mind you, and one’s mom dutifully places raisin eyes and a raisin nose and a raisin mouth onto one's toaster pastry, one should just suck it up when the raisins fall off. It’s not a national disaster, it’s not cause for sniveling and seething anger and waterworks, and how the hell did one plan to eat the Pop-Tart anyway without disrupting the raisin art at some point during the process?!

I let him have his little snit-fit while I finished putting on my makeup and drying my hair, and then I kissed him goodbye, told him to have a good day, and walked out the door. I was about to pull out of the carport when he yanked the door open and yelled after me, weeping freely, “I don’t want you to goooooooo!” So I stopped, opened the car door and held my arms out so he could nestle his snotty, tear-streaked face into my shirt, and asked him what, exactly, the problem was. “We didn’t apologize!” he said, and he wasn’t wrong, although technically I didn’t really see what I’d done to apologize for ... faulty raisin-face engineering?  So I said “I’m sorry we didn’t have a very good morning,” which should pass muster unless you’re very picky, and he said, “I’m sorry I been sick,” which was sooooo not the point, and I took him back inside, blew his nose, and bade Steven good luck.

Alex watched me back out of the driveway, waving mournfully as if I were off to the battlefields instead of off to a day of correcting spelling and grammar. “Have a good day; I love you,” I called to him as I put the car into Drive. He was bawling afresh as he yelled back, “I [sob] love [sob] you [sob] toooooooo!!!!” The heartbroken wail followed me down the street.

So, Monday: 1, Julie: 0. The day can only get better.