The Sled Incident

I was sitting in my jammies dripping from the shower making a list of the 101 things I need to do today when the phone rang.  It was Colin.

"I need a sled."

I'm sorry.  What, dear?  I thought you said you need a sled.

"I have enough reading points to go sledding today.  I need a sled."

All right. Huh.

So I got dressed and went out to the garage, fearful of disturbing the mice or voles or whatever is living in the eaves while I tried to dig out a sled I didn't think I could reach.  But -- hurrah! -- Brent in a stroke of genius had already gotten the sleds down.  This would be easier than I thought!

That's when I went back inside to get Preschooler D dressed.  Now, I wish I could post a photo of how I found PD.  I took one, but he is naked and I don't think that would be fair.  Yes, naked and with a plastic hanger around his waist.  I don't have husky children and this particular child had just stepped into and worked a hanger around himself.

Step one:  Remove hanger.

D did not want to take the hanger off.  He did not want to get dressed.  He did not want to go to Colin's school.  My patience wore down really, really quickly and there might have been one spank involved.  I will not say for sure in case you are opposed to such things.

I wrestled D into his pants, t-shirt, sweatshirt, socks, boots, coat, hat, mittens, car seat and we were off to Colin's school with D wailing all the way.  I got out, got the sled out, got D out and walked the long and snowy walk to the door.  We made our way past the check-in point down to Colin's hall.

"Hey!" said a random sixth grade girl I would swear I had never seen.  "Is that Colin's sled?  Do you want me to take it?"

(Don't you love my small school?)  Um, yes, random child.  Please take this sled.

Since we had extra time I thought we would poke our head into the classroom where Colin was.  He and a bunch of other kids were playing a game.  One random child I would swear I had never seen before looked up and said, "Hey!  There's Colin's mom!  Hey, Colin!  I didn't know you had a baby brother!"

Colin looked like he wanted to crawl in a hole and die.  "Did you bring a sled?!"  Of course, I brought a sled.  Are you kidding me?  (I actually just said, "yes.") D started taking off his coat. NO! NO, D!  We are not staying!  We must go!

And that's when I had to haul the wailing D back across the snowy parking lot where I wrestled him back into the car seat and home and back into the house.  We had to sit together for a full hour watching Mickey Mouse and lamenting how we had left poor Colin behind before we felt better.

And I never did finish my list of 101 things.