A JACK'd-Up School Morning

School is back in session for my kids, and it's a pretty low-key affair around here—no Facebook photos or special outfits. Our days are much calmer now, which is a sharp contrast to how things used to be.
Just the other day, Facebook reminded me of a chaotic morning from a few years ago. We were running late, as usual, with the kids rushing out the door, breakfast in hand, as they piled into the minivan. About two miles from home, my daughter started screaming about a spider crawling on the window. I tried rolling the window down to let it out, but it clung on stubbornly. Thankfully, I had an empty coffee mug in the cup holder from the day before, so I handed it to her to squish the spider. Instead, she threw the cup at it! Both the spider and my mug went flying out the window.
I had to pull over and dash to retrieve the mug from the side of the road. When I got back in the car, I told the kids to finish eating. That’s when my daughter discovered she’d been sitting in her toast and jelly during the entire spider battle. I handed her a roll of paper towels, and we just kept moving forward toward school.
It was one of those mornings I’ll never forget. I’m not sure when the shift happened, but we don’t have mornings like that anymore. Those wild, JACK’d-up moments are now blurry memories we can laugh about. I share this to remind other parents—there’s another side to the chaos. The days are long and hard, but the years really do fly by.

---