Confessions of a single Dad… chapter 1

The alarm clock beeps… he opens his eyes… it’s louder than normal and he was in the middle of a strange dream, but he knows something isn’t right. He reaches for his phone, it reads 7:00am

“Shit” he thinks, as he rolls over to look at the window because it must be a mistake.

But, he sees the light outside. He’s an hour late. “Dammit.”

He hops up, walks down the hallway rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He wakes his kids up, then walks into the bathroom to brush his teeth. After he changes and gets ready for works he looks at the clock:

7:08am.

His kids are still not up, so yells out to them a reminder to get ready for school (like he has a thousand times before). He goes into the living room and feeds the dogs and gives a third reminder to his kids that time is running out.

The clocks now reads 7:15am.

His little one finally gets up and is snarky towards him about getting ready for school. As he walks back into the kitchen a few minutes later the little one is eating a piece of buttermilk pie leftover from thanksgiving for breakfast. But is crying because he doesn’t feel good. So, he takes his temperature … 97.8…

“no fever” he says “ get ready for school bubba.” (The little one huffs and puffs)

The middle child is running around yelling at everyone and angry because the clock now reads 7:25am and she can’t find a safety pin for her boxer shorts. Yelling at the youngest for letting his friend have her bracelet set. The oldest is walking around on FaceTime helping no one just talking to her boyfriend.

He’s angry because they need to leave the house at 7:30 and he is sitting in the drivers seat of his car and clocks reads 7:33am. Everyone is slow getting into the car but, wait… the middle child has forgotten socks… so he sighs and says

“hurry up, we’re late!” Sternly as the hood goes inside to get socks.

The drive to the youngest’s school is a tense one because the tardy bell rings at 7:40am and they are pulling into the drop off line at 7:39am. The 2 kids In The back have been yelling at each about the bracelet kit the entire ride to school. They just barely make it into the parking lot before the bell rings and the little one is late… yet again… but he scrambles out of the car and off to the door.

“Bye, I love you, have a good day.” dad says.

They pull out and head to Starbucks to get his morning coffee and drop of the middle child so she can walk to high school later in the day. She crabs his coffee and brings it out to him and they part ways.

“Bye, love you.” He says with no response.

The drive to the third school is a quiet one.

“Hand me a napkin” he says to the oldest.

His coffee spilt as he went to take a sip and went all of the corner of the seat.

“Dammit” He scowls. Wondering if it will stain his seats.

It’s a 15 minute drive to the 3rd school and his oldest asks him to buy breakfast but reply’s no because she does this every morning. He pulls into the parking lot and hops out to air up his rear drivers side tire that reads it has a leak on the dashboard.

“Can anything else go wrong this morning” he mumbles to himself under his breathe.

He fills the tire and they sit in silence until 8:12 am so he can jump on the highway to work. Just waiting to catch a breathe and be in peace after the morning he just had… knowing in his mind that he’ll just have to repeat the process again tomorrow like he has for the last 4 years all alone. Hoping one day in the distant future he can look bad and know it was all worth it, that it had a purpose in the big scheme of things.