It's 6am Somewhere

At the beginning of the week, Reese said she needed two 2 liter bottles by Thursday for Biology. We don't buy 2 liters so it was like Christmas in August around here when Drue and Tate found out they could drink as much as they wanted. And, in fact, were encouraged to do so quickly since we only had a few days.

Who knew there were so many styles of 2 liters? Reese's teacher said not to get "weird" ones but I had no idea what that meant. Reese deemed my lemonade bottle "weird", so I put it back and got Sprite Zero. Sprite has been forever ruined for me thanks to the stomach flu. Root beer was our second pick. No bad memories associated with that flavor that I could recall.

I have been stumbling downstairs at 6:15 every morning this week to pop some waffles into the oven, announcing more than once, "Don't get used to this, people! I'm not doing it the whole school year." Yesterday morning the mostly drunk {"drunk" meaning "gone", not "intoxciated"} 2 liter of root beer was sitting on the counter. MOSTLY drunk?! Reese needed to take it that day. I poured out what was left {probably 12 ounces or so} and started sipping away. Not my first choice of beverage at the crack of dawn but, by golly, I wasn't going to waste one drop. I rinsed out the bottle and set it next to the already rinsed out Sprite Zero. Mission accomplished. Mom had saved the day.

As Reese flew around the house like a crazy person so she wouldn't be late for her bus that comes at O dark 30, I hollered, "Don't forget your 2 liters!!" Her school is across town and the list of forgotten items I will drop off for her is slim. And may actually only include "oxygen tank" should she become dependent on one for survival.

"What?" she hollered back.
"Your 2 liters! It's Thursday!" I reminded her proudly.
"Oh. I don't need those 'til the 28th," she said dismissively as she stuffed practice clothes in her backpack.

I had just guzzled the rest of it for nothing? And the worst part was, it was caffeine free. So it would benefit me in no way whatsoever. Great. Now root beer is ruined for me because I will associate it with early mornings. And I abhor early mornings. David was flying in that evening, so I had to put signs on the empty bottles saying, "REESE NEEDS THESE FOR SCHOOL" because he tosses out anything and everything we are not using at that exact moment.

All in all, we made it through the first full week of early mornings, extra school supply runs, and picture day thrown in for grins (pun intended).  Reese did have a near miss when she decided to start walking home one evening after practice while I was at a parent meeting at the middle school and was late picking her up. My rule-following child who worries about getting arrested for jaywalking in our neighborhood decided to cross all four lanes of Blackbob with no traffic light in sight. What. On. Earth. I half wish the cops had picked her up to scare her straight. Besides, the girl can't not smile. So her mug shot would have been pretty adorable.

And I'll be bracing myself for her frantic text from school on the 28th..."Mom, I forgot my 2 liters."