Poor Caroline

Mondays and Wednesdays are always interesting mornings around this house.  Both Caroline and Reagan go to school on these days.  With Brooke and the baby sleeping, I am trying to do everything SEAL Team Six style.  Very covert, very silent.  Well I should have known that today was going to be a difficult one for Caroline from the start.  From the moment she got out of bed, or should I say fell out of bed, I had to keep pushing her.  I finally got her dressed and sent them downstairs to get their breakfast.  Both girls know the routine enough and started to get their breakfast out while I was getting changed upstairs.  The problem was Caroline was talking up a storm and I can hear her all the way in my closet where I was changing.  She was endangering the mission by waking up everyone including Baylor Grace.  So I came downstairs and got on her case for being loud, her last instruction from me prior to going downstairs was to be quiet.  So, I get downstairs and it is time for phase two of breakfast- their tradition yogurt tube.  I wanted to check my work email before we left but the last instructions I gave them was sit at the table and don’t get it on you.  As we hurry to get out the door because we were running behind and I notice that Caroline had yogurt all over the front of her.  I didn’t lose it but I was rather perturbed.  So I rushed her upstairs and changed her into some outfit so we could get to school on time.  She knew her Daddy was upset but she just said "that's okay Daddy."

I sent her downstairs again and told her to get her jacket so we can go.  I picked up Baylor (who was up now) and came downstairs into the garage to get going.  Caroline was out there, sans jacket.  I said "CAROLINE get your d*mn jacket!"  Her response was, with a smile, "oh sorry Daddy."  I was so pissed and yet she wasn’t bothered at all. So we get there and get out and she doesn’t have her jacket on, she can't get it on her by herself.  Her sister who is two years younger gets dressed by herself, yet Caroline doesn’t.  So after another blow up by me, I calm down and put her jacket on for her.  All is okay, we are walking into school, and everything is good.  As I am talking to the girls about the weather, etc. I reach for the school door and hear a splat.  I don’t think much of it until I hear Caroline crying a very unsettling crying.  Now she cries all the time (don't know where she got that from) but this sounded a little different.  I turn around and she is laying face first flat on the ground.  I pick her up and notice that she had done a face plant....on the very flat sidewalk....only Caroline.  Only Caroline would not catch herself, probably because she was sucking her thumb.  Her glasses are now scratched up and she had a strawberry on her forehead and nose.  At this point I was ready to give up and it wasn’t 8 AM yet.  I contemplated very seriously about turning around with Caroline and going home.  She was a mess and the last thing she wanted to do was go to school.  However, I brushed her off and made her go in.  After the furry of the morning, I started to feel really bad for her.  She is hurt by the fact that she is bookend by two very independent, self reliant, sisters.  Both Reagan and Baylor Grace are very mature for their ages and can do most things on their own.  Both are pretty head strong.  Caroline is a different girl and sometimes I forget that.  You want to treat them all the same but in reality, you can't.  I always felt as a coach I had a pretty good instinct on figuring out if a player needed me to push them verbally, or if a look was all it took.  Kids really are the same way.  When I keep reminding myself that I can reach Caroline better than anyone, probably because only I know how her mind ticks.  Only I know why she reacts the way she does, reason being: she is exactly like me.  Her mind works the same way mind does.  So while on the surface this morning wasn't her best morning, in reality it wasn’t mine.  I let her down as a parent this morning; it probably won’t be the last.  We always joke that she has a "double dose of Focker," in her (from the Little Fockers movie above) but in reality I think she just has a double dose of Boomer in her.