There are smooth days and then there are days like yesterday. I was taking Jesse to school when I realized that I had not given him his medicine. So I had to circle back around the block. As I was walking up the porch to the house, I noticed Jesse's bike leaning against the bushes. So I motioned for Jesse to get out of the car and help me take his bike inside. That accomplished, I gave him his medicine and we headed for school again. This is why I leave the house at 7:30 even though school doesn't start until 8, and we're 2 minutes away. In spite of the delays, I still got him to school on time. Campus School takes tardies very seriously. Get more than six a year, and you have to answer for it before being allowed to return next year.
When I got home from work, I told Jesse to get started on his homework. But he couldn't find his homework folder. When I had picked him up from Lindenwood, he told me that he'd only done half of his homework because he'd worked in concessions that afternoon. So we piled back in the car and drove back to Lindenwood. On the way, I told him that I would bail him out just this once, but that it's his responsibility to make sure he has his stuff together when I pick him up. Also on the way, Jesse opened the back door as I was stopped at a red light, leading to a very confusing few seconds during which he halfway pulled the door back shut and then locked it as I barked at him that he needed to now re-open the door and pull it all the way shut. Once we got that problem fixed, I told him to not ever touch any part of the door ever again.
We got back to Lindenwood, and he went upstairs in search of his folder and came back down empty-handed. He then found the director and asked her if it was in lost and found. Nope. So I walked upstairs with him and found the folder, which was laying in plain sight on a table in the middle of the room. I thumped him on the head with it playfully, and we headed home again. Finally, the homework got finished.
Jesse wanted to play outside for a bit, so I curled up on the couch with my newest issue of Entertainment Weekly. 20 minutes later, Jesse walked back inside crying. His shoe lace had gotten tangled on his bike pedal, and he'd had a spill. "And I laid there outside for like 10 minutes yelling for somebody and nobody heard me. And it was very complicated to get untangled." Poor kid. He had scraped his elbow and scratched his palms. By then it was 7:30, and I opted to feed Jesse leftover pizza for supper. He couldn't have been happier. His dad had a frozen dinner of some sort. I just skipped dinner. It just seemed like too much of an effort.
This morning Jesse quadruple-knotted his shoelaces, which meant it took him 15 minutes to tie his shoes. So far, today is going much better.