Back To School Drama - Shows Daily!

We are having the usual school re-entry turbulence.

Having struggles to get our 13 year old twin girls to do the most basic things...for instance, they're supposed to pick out their outfits the night before but this morning one of my daughters was in a panic because she couldn't find 'anything' to wear. All I know is, I spent about $200 on back to school clothing for each girl. How can she not have ANYTHING to wear? This is ridiculous. Oh the angst and the drama...(Oh I wish they'd just go to uniforms at public schools!!!)

My daughters also seem to oblivious to alarm clocks. Maybe it's an allergy.

Either it's 'someone else's' responsibility to get up and turn off the alarm clock (if they do hear it) or they don't hear it. I start out gently saying "wake up, it's time to get up"
then I talk in my Medium-sized voice and say "Get up, time to get UP!" that fails, so I say in my big bad voice, "GET UP! This is the THIRD and FINAL time that I will be coming in here and telling you to get up!! If you don't get up in time and are late for school, it's up to YOU NOW! Then they finally get up and grumble that I'm so mean. Well I started out in the nice voice, they just worked that nerve until I had to use the Big Voice.

The daughter who doesn't have anything to wear, finally gets dressed and looks like a supermodel. She's stressing out about school. She thinks she looks awful. I tell her she looks great, but you know they can't believe what their MOM tells them, Mom looks at them through the eyes of love. I can tell she's having a panic attack, so I make her lie down, hands open at her sides, and I taught her some calming breathing exercises. She panicked even about that, and protested she didn't have time for that. Yes you do have time for it, I told her. What you don't have time for is running around the house in a panic! So after she did that, she seemed to calm down, ate a bowl of cereal. You couldn't pay me to be in junior high again.

Now have 3 minutes to make the 10 minute drive to my son's Pre-K.
He suddenly thinks he needs to go #2 in the potty. This is something I want to encourage, because I don't want this to happen in his pants at school. If he accidentally makes a mess at school, I am branded "The Bad Mother," a total failure to get my child to commit to The System and completely conform. The attempt at poo is unfruitful. He wants it to happen, but as he says, "my poop won't do it." Okay it's the poop's fault now.

At this point I have even less time to get him to school on time, and my oldest daughter appears with hair elastic in hand, and asks if I will put her hair in a ponytail. Sorry can't do it. Child needs to do her own hair. If she wasn't in a constant war with her twin sister, she could do it for her.

Zip out to the car, take son to school. When I arrive back home, my daughters are still waiting for the bus. What the hey, I still have shoes on, so I take them to school.

Come back home.

Breathe.

At least... until the pickup cycle and rushing around to finish homework, cook dinner, and clean begins this afternoon.

Cycles to be repeated.

Okay, I admit, I am also having re-entry turbulence.
This week, the rules are going to be laid out and these situations corrected.

Um...riiiight.