Back to work and school tomorrow.  Ugh. 

Maria on Monday morning: pre-dressed stage

The kids will inevitably pitch a fit in the morning when we announce that it is time to get dressed.  “I don’t like school, Mom! I don’t like my friends. I don’t like the food,” announces Maria in her dictatorial fashion.  Mario then has to chime in because his sister has expressed her views.  “No school, mommy.  Stay home!”  Monday morning consists of constant bickering back and forth between me and them. 

“Maria, please stop hugging your brother – he is not in the mood.” 

“No, Ria. Get off” as Mario digs his nails into Maria’s arm. 

“Owwww, mom, Mario is scratching me!”

Mario laughs like a crazed maniac.

I run over and grab him off of Maria (it still floors me that she does not simply punch him right in the face as she is twice his weight but that would need some exertion on her part, which is not her strong suit).  Mario runs in his room, and slams the door. 

His new experiment lately is to try to get himself dressed.  Unfortunately, he always comes out with a t-shirt pulled up on his waist and nothing on his top so he looks like a little hippy girl ready to sing some Joni Mitchell.  When I tell him that I have to dress him, he yells “No, me do it, Mommy!” and runs away.  Meanwhile, Maria is in the background shaking her head, smiling and remarking “that Mario is a silly boy!”  Such the mother hen, she is.  

Maria refuses to let me in her room because she wants to surprise her dad and I with her outfit, which lately has been layers of three shirts, one sweater, and two pairs of pants with a barette clipped haphazardly in her tousled hair that she refuses to allow me to comb (I have given up on that battle long ago – let her have tangled hair, who cares?!).  Once she dressed herself, she seems resigned to head to school and usually ceases the whining. 

Mario, however, fights me like the Huns.  He hates getting dressed because he knows that is a step closer to school.  He is no dummy.  I usually have to bribe him with a binkie or a sucker (yes, I am a horrible mother who will deliver suckers to her children to get them to work with her) to get his clothes on him and even then I have to allow him to put on his socks (which are inevitably two different colors and I so so not care. Jon, however, bristles at letting him go to school with non-matching socks. He is two, who cares!?).  Then the fun starts over again.

“Let’s go downstairs!” I yell. 

Maria screams “I am gonna win!” and runs down the stairs. 

Mario flings himself on the hall floor and balls “No, Ria, me win!”  I try to pick him up but he maneuvers his body like a wet noodle; my patience is fading quickly.  I ask Maria to come back upstairs so Mario can win.  Now, this is why I just love that girl.  She does it!  She comes back up and even roots Mario on when he is heading down the stairs “Go, Mario, you are so fast.  That is a good, strong brother.  You are the best!”  Yeah, I really doubt that Mario would be doing that for Ri if he was the older sibling.   By the time we are all downstairs, about one and a half hours have passed.  Mario stomps into the kitchen crying for his binkie and blankie and begging me to hold him still chanting every so often “no school, mommy.”  

By the time we put on our coats, Monday’s poke in the eye has stopped hurting so much and we have resolved that this is life so we may as well roll with it.  After all, how much crying can you do before you realize it won’t change anything?  I should say that Ri and I have reached that resolution.  Mario still has a couple of years to reach it, and he reminds of that every Monday morning. 

Mario on a Monday morning - please leave me alone!