On Thursdays, We Rush

On Thursdays, we rush.

It's one of those situations where you have to push the right domino at the right time. If you do, it all falls together beautifully. If not, everything quickly falls apart. Thus, I start the first domino off carefully by rushing out of work on time.

If I screw that up, it's all over.

If I leave work on time, then I get to rush to pick up Mila. From there it's time to pick up Alexis, and then we rush home so that I can quickly make dinner. Alexis has to be back out the door in a blink, so I remind everyone to focus on eating and getting ready for the next domino.

Rush. Rush. Rush.

If I do it right, we all sit down to dinner together. It might even be a "real" meal, just so long as I rush fast enough to get to that point.

Today I left work three minutes late, which, VICTORY! That's within the margin of error. It was snowing, so the rushing to get Mila was a little slower than I would have liked, but I still made it mostly on time. As Mila and I carefully trudged our way towards Alexis, I listened to a loooooong excited story about snow.

SNOW!

IT'S SNOWING!

LOOK! SNOW!

I WANNA BUILD A SNOWMAN!

(Seriously, Mila says that all the time. The best is when she asks Alexis if she wants to build a snowman.)

SNOOOOW!

MOM! SNOW!

IT"S SNOWING!

Someone was a wee bit excited about the snow is what I'm saying.

We grabbed Alexis and finished the trek home. By then, the snow had bumped my "mostly on time" to "slightly behind." I was maybe 10 minutes later than I would have liked. It was no big deal, though. It just meant I had to make a quick dinner.

Easy enough.

Except.

The first mistake was unbuckling Mila without going around. It's almost as if I didn't learn that lesson JUST THE OTHER DAY. I unbuckled her while I was still in my seat, so she promptly made like Garfield and then began pinging around the car. When I finally managed to get my hands on her, she was wound up.

SO WOUND UP.

She was so wound up that she seemingly forgot that she has a very strict No Feet On The Ground policy. The child hasn't walked into the house on her own power for months. MONTHS. And yet, she insisted that her feet touch the ground the second she was out of the car.

And then she ran.

Mila ran into the yard and started gleefully yammering about the snow. She kicked at some flakes, she picked up a fist full of snow, and she laughed.

And she laughed.

And she refused to go in the house.

"NO! I PLAY SNOW!"

Welp. We can all sit down at the table and eat a decent meal together another Thursday, I guess. Sometimes you just have to let the little people lead the way when there is snow to enjoy.