Amy Maxwell & the 7 Deadly Sins (The Amy Maxwell Series Book 2) (2 page)

I am actually chuckling evilly to myself as I consider this.
Poor Bethie…she has no idea what she’s getting into.
She will gasp with horror when she sees him, clucking her tongue because she won’t be able to help herself. And I will wave happily as I dash to my car and make my getaway.

For once, I don’t even care what my perfect sister Beth is going to say when I drop my kid off all sticky and gross. Once upon a time, Beth’s little digs and passive aggressive jabs about my lack of mothering skills really got to me. She would run her finger along the table that I forgot to dust or point out that my kids’ socks didn’t match (or their shoes). It would enrage me and I would continue to fall over myself to meet her approval. But last year when she actually had to watch my kids for a few days when Allie and I were being hidden away, she got a glimpse of my not so easy life. Ever since then, she’s been a lot more forgiving with my blunders at motherhood. She’s still Beth, but I have a feeling she’s biting her tongue an awful lot more than she is used to.

“Come on, kid,” I mumble as I scoop my youngest child into my arms and head to the living room, my one soaked sock making juicy footprints in my wake.

“
Mother
!” Allie wails dramatically. “Who’s going to clean up this mess? It’s all over the kitchen!”

I turn to smile at her. “Looks like you’re the lucky winner!”

She huffs with annoyance. Lexie is standing behind me with a smirk on her face.

“This is
so
not fair,” Allie mumbles as she flounces off to retrieve the paper towels. She spots her sister behind my back and shoves the roll at her. “Here Lexie, you do it. I don’t have time for this bullshit this morning! Nobody woke me up! I’m late!”

“Join the club,” I mutter as I tromp up the steps, praying that my daughters can settle this without bloodshed so that I can actually get myself and the three youngest children out of the house within the hour. I can still hear them bickering as I reach the top of the stairs.

“That’s not fair,” Lexie argues. “Mom told
you
to clean it up. You never do
anything
!”

“I don’t have time to clean it up. My bus will be here in fifteen minutes. I have to finish getting ready.”

“You look ready to me,” Lexie snaps. “Except for your missing Dracula make-up.”

“
Bitch
.”

“
Slut
.”

“Ha! You only call me that because no boys would ever like your ugly ass!”

“If my ass is ugly, your face is hideous!”

I am ignoring my daughters’ colorful use of the English language as I tote Evan down the hallway. Now, you may be wondering how I allow such horrific swearing to be tossed around so casually in the kitchen at 7:00 on a Monday morning. It’s simple. I don’t really have the time or energy to give a rat’s hiney hole. In my fifteen years of parenting, I have come to the conclusion that I absolutely must pick my battles and focus on one catastrophe at a time. I am not a magician. Trying to fix everything has only succeeded in me making unfortunate mistakes. For my sanity, I’m trying to take things one at a time. The fact that the girls are cursing is currently taking a back seat to my absolute need to
get out of the house on time!

With Evan struggling to get free from under my left arm, I rap on the door of my other son, Colt. He is the only one who has not joined this morning’s melee yet, and he’s probably the one who takes the longest to get going in the morning. Truth be told, I probably should have gotten him up about four and a half hours ago if I had any hopes of getting him out of the house on time. At age seven, Colt has decided that sleep has become very precious to him and he doesn’t want to part with it. Not sure why he couldn’t have come to that conclusion seven
years
ago when he would spend half the night in “awake” mode, but now it is actually pretty inconvenient for him to be a sleep lover. Ironically, on the weekends, when we can actually sleep till a decent hour, Colt is usually hovering over our bed at five am looking for someone to hook up his Playstation.

“Colt! It’s time to get up for school, buddy!” I am trying to sound as cheerful as possible.

About as much as he loves sleep, Colt detests school. He is quite put out that he cannot spend his day in PE or at recess. The whole learning to read and doing math thing has really screwed up his plans to cover himself in dirt and sweat all day. He is looking at a bright future as a gym teacher or professional wrestler, if he can just keep it together long enough to make it out of the public school system.

There is no answer on the other side of his closed door. I glance down the hall and see that my own bedroom door is closed. I can only assume that Roger is now getting dressed and will not be available to tackle the daily, ‘
drag Colt out of bed game
’. Big shock that is. He’s never much help in the morning. Why would I expect him to be helpful on my
biggest day yet
?

Dropping Evan to the floor, I instruct him to go get clothes on. I cross my fingers as he wanders off toward his bedroom. Maybe he’ll actually put his underwear on. His bottom, that is. Usually he tries out the various ways underwear can be used as an accessory. Like a hat or a vest. It makes for cute Facebook photos, but not this morning.

I push Colt’s door open and step inside the darkened room. Carefully traversing the Lego filled terrain, I hop over to his lamp and click it on. I groan as I notice his room looks like a tornado has touched down. There are dirty clothes on his bed and clean clothes on his floor. There are at least two hundred and fifty two Jolly Rancher wrappers dotted all over the rug. I want to kill our babysitter Gigi for buying him that giant bag of Jolly Ranchers for his birthday two weeks ago. Said Jolly Ranchers are also sticking to the carpet. Based on this, I am guessing the flavors that he doesn’t like are grape and apple. As I lean down to detach one and pull up half a dozen strands of blue carpet thread, I am seriously perturbed, but I don’t have time to deal with that right now.

You haven’t had time to deal with much of anything lately have you?
I notice that my internal voice has actually started to sound suspiciously like my husband. I ignore its accusations of failed motherhood as I gently shake my third child who appears to be auditioning for the role of a taco. He is curled up like a burrito in his blankets, with just the crown of his head sticking out of the top and his bare feet poking out of the bottom.

I smile to myself as I continue to attempt to nudge him awake.
Isn’t he sweet?
And then I realize; I’m probably only thinking that because he is the only one of my children who hasn’t totally aggravated the shit out of me already this morning by speaking or moving. I know in about five minutes, I will add him to the list of people I want to maim. In fact, I am getting increasingly close each second he doesn’t get out of bed and I am forced to actually look at the state of disarray that his room is in.

“Come on, Colt,” I murmur soothingly, attempting to unwrap burrito boy.

“No, no,” he mutters, his fist flying dangerously close to my face. I duck out of the way in time. I’m not new at this. I’m pretty sure I could actually charge to teach self-defense classes solely based upon my practice in the mornings.

“Sorry buddy, but you have to get up.” I tug at the covers. The faint aroma of ammonia catches my nostrils and I groan. Placing my hand on the mattress directly underneath my son, I realize that Colt has wet the bed
again
. Unless…
crap…did I ever strip the sheets and wash them after he peed the bed the night before?
I can’t be sure. His
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
pajamas feel damp at any rate.

“Want more sleep…” he grumbles, yanking the covers from my hand.

“Yeah, you and me both kid,” I remark as I continue to pull the blanket off. “Come on, kiddo. You gotta get up. You’re lying in a puddle of pee.” I tug the sheets out from underneath him and toss them into a pile. I’ll have to deal with that later.
I’m starting to think that should be my mantra.
I’ll deal with that later…

As I haul him to his feet I hear Roger calling out from downstairs, “Bye! I’m leaving now! Good luck!” The front door slams before I can even reply.

Damn it!
Allie’s bus will be arriving soon and from what I can hear, she’s still arguing with Lexie. I do
not
want to have to drive her to school again.

The last time I drove her to school I not only fought with buses and other harried parents rushing off to other places, but scores of young drivers who had just gotten their licenses and think that the yellow lines in the road are merely suggestions that don’t apply to them.

Let me tell you, it was a traumatizing experience for all involved. Lexie screeched the entire journey, clutching the ‘
oh shit’
bar and chanting the Hail Mary. Evan had unbuckled himself during the trip and I found him in the front seat clapping and screaming “
McQueen, McQueen!”
He thought we were in a scene from his favorite movie. My life flashed before my eyes while I was nearly rear-ended on at least three separate occasions. I’m amazed we escaped with only a minor dent in the fender.

So needless to say, I have no desire to pack up the entire clan and take them on a morning edition of ‘
This
Was
Your Life’
. I glance at my son who has now curled back up into a ball, sans comforter and sheets. Directly on the puddle of pee. Sighing, I realize my daughter getting out of the house is the most urgent of all my tasks at the moment. I feel like a triage nurse who constantly needs to prioritize the disasters that spill into the ER.

Allie can’t just make life easier and leave with Roger? After all, he’s going to the same place. Oh no, God forbid you’re seen in public with your father if he’s the principal.
It’s apparently worse than having a “regular” father, according to my daughter
.

“Allie! Get your butt out the door this instant!” I call out while I pull Colt into a sitting position. He flops right back down.

“I have to finish my make-up!” she wails, voice still coming from downstairs.

“Yeah because the boys will confuse her butt with her face if she doesn’t!” Smart-Alec Lexie chimes in.

I hear a scraping noise, a thud, and then one of Lexie’s signature screeches.

“My hair!
Mommy
! She’s pulling my hair! And it hurts!”

“Well if you weren’t a
bitch
I wouldn’t have to hurt you!”

Just then Evan wanders into the bedroom. He is proudly holding my toothbrush. “Look Mama! I brush my hair!”

I nearly hit the roof. We’ve actually had to sit down on numerous occasions and discuss not using Mommy’s toothbrush for our hair. Yes, that’s a conversation that needs to be had in our house. It’s not enough that I can’t have nice things; I can’t even have personal hygiene products? I can’t even begin to tell you what he did when he discovered a box of tampons. Let’s just say we had to take the money for the plumber’s bill out of his college savings.

“That is it! I have
had
it!” I scream at the top of my lungs. It is so loud it actually causes Colt to bolt upright in his bed and cover his ears.

“What was that?” he asks, wincing in pain.

“Mama, that’s not nice,” Evan scolds me, shaking the toothbrush in my direction. My youngest child does not quite understand that my tone indicates that I am
done
being nice. I detach my toothbrush from his grubby little hands, make a mental note to pick one up at the store if I can get there sometime today, and then notice that Evan has actually followed my other directions. He is completely dressed. He’s wearing a pair of green sweat pants and a red button down flannel. It’s buttoned incorrectly, but hey, it’s a start. Beggars can’t be choosers and I am about to start begging. I glance at the clock on Colt’s dresser and I know I am running
really
short on time.

I snatch Colt’s clothes from the dresser where I laid them out last night and throw them at him.

“Ouch!” he complains loudly. “The zipper hit my lip!”

“Are you bleeding?” I ask unsympathetically.

Colt examines his mouth for blood. “No…I don’t think so.”

“Good. Get dressed. Oh, and go wipe yourself up with baby wipes before you put your clothes on. You reek of pee.”

I stomp out of his room and head back downstairs, Evan trailing right behind me as I ponder the idea that we should have named him Shadow rather than Evan.

“Let’s go, Allie,” I tell her as I hurry into the kitchen and head toward the fruit bowl on the counter. If I’m lucky I can grab a cup of coffee and choke down a banana before I need to get the rest of the circus into the clown car. “I can hear your bus down the block. It’ll be here any second.”

“
Mother
! I can’t go to school without make-up!” Teenaged Drama Queen moans. “What will everyone think?”

“They’ll think you need to get up earlier,” I reply at the same time that Lexie chirps, “They’ll think you look like a monkey’s ass.”