No School for You!

Two of my worst flaws are that I am lazy and I am cheap.

Today, I discovered which one describes me more.   And the winner is………

LAZY!  Good to know.

Hurray for learning something about yourself, right?  And without even paying a therapist!  (Dammit.  There I go being cheap again.)

You may have heard that it is snowing here in the Northeast.  I am sure you have at least one Facebook friend that just Won’t. Shut. Up. about it.

So, anyway, there is a lot of snow and it is still coming down.

I knew this and I tried to prepare myself to go out in all of the snow to bring Carlitos to school today.  I really did.  I swear.  He has to be at school at 2:00 and I had us completely done with lunch by 1:00. I had both boys dressed.  I had his snack packed up.

All I had to do was get myself dressed and go.

Except that ‘go’ actually means stuffing both boys into snow suits and packing up the diaper bag.  Then, it means getting both kids, a diaper bag and a stroller with a standing attachment down three flights of stairs, walking to the subway, getting on the subway, walking to school from the subway, and then waiting two and a half hours just to do the same thing in reverse.

I do this fun little exercise three days a week.  But today there is just all of this SNOW. Okay, okay, I have totally done this many times in the snow.  The other factor is that Xavi and Carlitos have woken up in the middle of the night the past three nights and I am EXHAUSTED.

Snow + night wakings = Bad, bad mommy

I feel terrible.  Honest, I do.  Poor Carlitos finally realized that the gray, snowy sky is turning into a dark gray, snowy sky and we still haven’t left for school.

Wait, Mommy, I want to go to schoooooo-wul!  Are we going to schoo-wul?  Mommy?  Mommy?  Mommmmmmmy!

Well, Carlitos, school is almost over now.  I am so sorry.  You can go on Friday!

I want to go TODAY!  I know! I have an idea, Mommy!  A goot idea!  We can walk on the snow very, very carefully…and go to schoo-wul!

I’m so sorry Carlitos.  It’s too late to go today.

And now I feel like the worst mommy in the world.

But even Mother’s Guilt wasn’t enough for me to pack up the boys and race over to his school so he could catch 45 minutes of education.  Even being an educator myself wasn’t enough to force me to do it.  And like I mentioned in the beginning, even my frugality wasn’t enough.  Because pre-school in NYC?  It ain’t cheap folks.  Don’t think for a second that I haven’t already done the math and figured out exactly what each 2.5 hour day of pre-school is costing us.  I have.

And it is a pretty penny.

Personally, I usually like to save up my pretty pennies for a nice pair of boots on clearance at Tj Maxx or some discount construction paper at Michael’s.  I HATE wasting them paying for a school day that takes place without my son in the classroom.

Oh yes, and of course I hate knowing that he missed 2.5 hours of singing in Spanish.  You know, his education.  That too.

I keep consoling myself in the knowledge that I am not alone in my laziness.  As a country we are pretty stellar at being lazy.

Our beer comes ‘pre-limed.’

Our peanut butter and jelly already co-mingled in one jar.

Our meals ready to eat after 30 seconds in a microwave.

Our bourbon comes ‘pre-cherry flavored.’ (This is where my husband got his idea for his own little concoction.)

Oh man, these examples are totally all about food and alcohol.  That’s embarrassing.

Our cars will pretty soon be able to drive themselves. (Say WHAT?!?)

Our stamps AND our envelopes are pre-licked.  (Sticky.  Pre-licked.  Same difference.)

Our vacuums vacuum without us.

I could go on and on.  Which makes me feel a lot better about not taking Carlitos to school today.  Maybe I am not the worst mom in the entire world.  And hey, it turns out I am not the cheapest.

In fact, maybe I am not even the laziest in the entire world!

I didn’t even make it on the list of top 25 examples of laziness.

That’s something, right?

Oh, shoot! It’s 5:30 pm already?!  I gotta run.  Dinner’s not gonna nuke itself!