When the Day is Over Way Before Noon

Paxton spends most of the night in an ibuprofen induced sleep for fever and headache, but it's a terrible rest, thrashing and uncomfortable. I spend most of the night dodging his appendages aimed at my face. Two hours of consecutive sleep later for myself, and the boy hits the ground running at 6:30.        *stumbles to the coffee*  Kids eager to be all the things before 7:30 and follow me around. Breakfast and morning chores. Then school. That lovely chunk of day dedicated to educating and molding young minds.   *coffee still in hand- we got this*   McKenna on bookwork, Caelan on iPad, Evelynn on computer, Paxton becoming increasingly whiny and sickly. Catch Caelan playing Temple Run instead of geography. McKenna insists she can't read because she can't read like an adult-- same things she's been saying for months--practice makes perfect, love... Rome wasn't built in a day. Evelynn is blankly staring at the computer "I have no idea what to do- I've never done this before"... like never in the last six months-- REALLY?  In one fell swoop she thinks she can negate months of math lessons by saying "I forgot."   *lost coffee somewhere between McKenna crying over her chapter book and Paxton upset PAW Patrol was not on his channel*   Caelan has lost the country flag flashcards "Oops, guess I can't do them today." Try again. Move McKenna to iPad, get her started on geography... catch her playing Temple Run five minutes later. Death to that app. Paxton is dosed, on the iPad... until his app freezes and it's like his dog died. Evelynn is still on math. Are you for real? She rolls her eyes.   *clutches coffee tightly to chest, left eye twitches*   McKenna does math... um, you wrote your five backwards-- she knows, she "just likes it better that way." That didn't fly two years ago, why do you think it would now? Erases the five and starts over. Oh, good. It's the way it should be, like you did it in Kindergarten. We've made progress today. Caelan has disappeared, she claims bathroom needs... I'm not convinced. Evelynn, still staring at her computer math-- wait, did she just use her fingers to count? It's long division. How can you use fingers for that? And why fingers? You're in 5th grade...  Order of operations for long division are apparently in Cantonese because she's glazed over. Walk through each step by step by step by step for two problems. Seems she's got it. But no.  *sips coffee-- I picked the wrong mug for today-- should have been Darth Vader-- oh, wait, that was yesterday's well used mug*   It's only 10:15. You know what? Documentary. Netflix. Get your science on. "Hey, MOM!!! Come look at these frogs playing piggy back in the wild! They are sooooo cute!   *chokes on coffee*