Banana sagas

So, yesterday morning is a typical day. (Well, all right, not quite typical.)

I get up to take child #1 off to school. He finds an almost black banana skin in his bag. One he left there, I might add. He dry-wretches. He pulls himself together, but he's late. Has missed his bus -- but there's another that goes around the corner ten minutes after his. He might make it. But he doesn't. Not to worry. We can chase his, which ten minutes up the road has to do a big loop. While it's looping, we'll circumvent the loop and cut all this time off the trip and beat it to the stop. Only we don't. The bus stop is empty. We drive back home, having wasted nearly twenty-five minutes.

Child #2 should by this time be nearly ready to go to school. She's not. She's in the shower because no-one has been around to give her a time-check. Never mind droughts and soaring water bills. I give her the check and a kick up the bum. Metaphorically, of course.

Eventually, she comes down, and finds a squashed black banana in her bag. It's through her music notebook, all over her notes, its through her maths folder, her maths workbook, her maths textbook. Squished banana everywhere. She dry-retches. She needs both the music and maths books at school, so they can't be left for me to clean later. Both child has dry-retched over black bananas, so neither one is capable of helping me clean up. The books are fiddly. I have to clean each page individually and because the pages are soggy and sticky, sometimes the text comes off or the paper rips. It's a frustrating hour-long job. And then there's the bag itself...

Both kids are now very late for school. I have to write notes. And become taxi driver. Child #1's trip involves well over forty minutes. I have work to do, but by the time I get home it's after 10.30. Half my morning's gone. And I wonder why I never seem to get anything done. Go figure.