Rat Race

Starting to get the hang of the new routine. It's busy, but manageable. I get up at quarter to seven and walk the dogs.

By 7:05 I'm back in the apartment and getting Grayson out of bed. Turn on the coffee pot and slurp down some coffee while Grayson has breakfast, then send him off to get dressed while I get in the shower.

I dress, put my heels in my purse and my sneakers on my feet for the daily drag down the stairs to the car. I learned the hard way that heels when walking Flower are not a good idea. It's gradually becoming more walking than water skiing, which is good, but she still has a tendency to pull.... okay, JERK. She's getting better, but I don't like to take the chance that she'll drag me head-first down the stairs. Grayson takes Kobi and we do a certain amount of circling each other because G is not that great at keeping Kobi from circling around me and binding my legs together.

Load the dogs and the kid in the car. We get to Grayson's school in time for the morning pledge of allegiance and then I go back to the old house to drop the dogs off in the back yard for "doggy Day Care." For now it's easier to take them there and let them be outside all after than to trust them in the apartment all day.

After the dog drop I'm back in the car and off down the highway at 8:30, the same time I would have been leaving the house before The Change.

Problem is, so far we're not that great at remembering everything. Friday it was Grayson's homework that got left behind, and I had to bring it to school at lunch. Yesterday Grayson had a school field trip to the museum and we didn't get out the door in the morning with his sack lunch, so I had to buy him lunch in the cafe while he was here. Today we got to school without his backpack so I had to circle back to the apartment and pick it up and bring it to him. We're 1 for 4 so far. Tomorrow I hope to actually remember everything.

I think I'm going to enroll Flower in Dog School to break her of the pulling habit, and so I can open the front door without them rushing out into traffic. Kobi has been very good, but so far will still not go poop while on a leash. This is fine as long as she is in the yard at the old house all day, but when the house sells and she's in the apartment she's either going to crap on the carpet (or is that crapet?) or explode. So we'll have to work on that, too.

All in all we make steady progress toward the goal of living like regular people. There are still boxes of pictures that haven't been hung. I did hang three on Monday, but yesterday we got home too late after shopping for Grayson's Halloween costume. He's going as "zombie Elvis." Don't ask me where he came up with that. It's hysterical, though. We got him a black Elvis wig and gold aviator sunglasses, some gold chains and a microphone. He'll wear his skeleton T-shirt under a jean jack that I'll stick some rhinestones too. He's practicing saying "thank yuh, thank yuh verry much." It makes me crack up.

Okay, so yesterday Grayson's class came to the museum for a field trip and I got to be a chaperone. Let me tell you, they don't pay teachers enough. I had only three boys: Grayson, Tyler and Tymane. They were pretty good, but I was worn out by the time they got back on the bus at 1:00.

Still, they all had a good time, and it was fun for me to be with them. Here are a few pics.