It it finished.

The morning get-out-the-door-for-school rush, that is. And this morning it was particularly painful.

Charlie felt the need to tell me in detail every move he played in some archery video game -- walking in and out of the room as he was doing so. Which meant that if I really was interested in what he was saying (I wasn't), it would have been impossible for me to hear it anyway.

I was trying to get in Robbie's "sensory diet" -- activities that give adequate input to his sensory system so that when he gets to school he'll be in a better frame of mind to take on the day. On this morning's diet menu was having him crawl upstairs and back down (head first) several times, which he wasn't very interested in. Having him jump off the landing into the entryway over and over again, which then Charlie wanted to do, too, and the whole thing turned into a circus.

Annie was coughing up a lung every three minutes. And in the moments where she wasn't hacking like a chain smoker, she was bossing the other two around.

I finally sent Charlie for a run around the cul de sac. That earned me about 2 minutes of relative peace.

And of course the carpool was late today, so when I expected to have the house to myself at 7:05am, I wasn't alone until almost 7:15am.

So now I am sitting in the blissful silence, the tapping of the keyboard the only sound I hear. I'll take a few minutes before I have to get dressed to pray for those noisy, wild, wonderful kids of mine and assure myself that, for the next seven hours, they are the teachers' challenge.