This post doesn’t feature any photos. I expect you’ll be grateful.

I was so prepared for back to school last Sunday night.

Before 8 p.m. I entered the living room all aglow with giddiness.

I floated across the old scuffed wooden floors and sat beside Kevin.

“I feel really good,” I told him.

He tilted his head toward my direction with a quizzical look on his face.

“About what?”

“About everything.  My entire week’s lessons are planned.  I have printed out a few different schedules for our new school term.  I think the kids are all on track.  The house is tidy.  I feel organized and prepared.  And it’s early evening.”

I sighed the sigh of contentment.

And the sigh of ignorant bliss.

Oh – little ignorant me.

Monday dawned clear and cold.

I rose early to turn on the small heater in our living room.  On the living room floor all of the kids’ clothing for the day was neatly arranged and warming.  I made breakfast and had it on the table before 8:30.  It was epic.  The kids arrived at the table on time, in varying degrees of enthusiasm from my previous night’s pep talk.  We ate breakfast.  Peanut butter toast.  Bananas.  We laughed.  We started our new Scripture Memory program.  Kevin read the Bible.  Kids completed their copy work.  It was going so swimmingly I was heady with my own success.

Otto politely asked for more orange juice – a treat for our kids at breakfast.  I think he drank two glasses and I watched him finish several of his sibling’s glasses but that didn’t bear close monitoring I decided.

Chores were completed and we were still on track in a glorious fashion at 9:30 as we sat in the living room reading about processionary caterpillars.  One of the kids suggested we find a video online to see what the caterpillars’ long train of one hundred plus of the furry creatures looks like in real life.

I found some videos.  We watched them.  We marveled together at their amazing instincts.

We were watching the videos in the living room on our television.  Underneath the video were other similar searches – you know how YouTube works – and Otto Fox approached the TV with an outstretched arm.  He pointed to the screen – “Can we watch that one?” he asked.

His fist was directing us to a video labeled “Caterpillar Mutation” and even the two inch image was pretty disgusting.

“Um,” I said.

“This one,” he pointed again.

But as he pointed and tried to finish his request, his body convulsed a little, his mouth opened and out, in classic projectile fashion, spewed his breakfast.

No one moved.

I think we were stunned into silence.

It wasn’t until the second opening of his mouth and consequent continued spewing of his stomach contents that some of us kicked into gear.

Piper Finn disappeared.  London ran for a towel and Mosely ran for a bowl. Bergen Hawkeye completely buried himself under the sofa pillows and chanted, “Poor Otto.  Poor Otto.  Poor Otto,” while covering his own ears.

There is not a word for how revolting it was.

Splattering against the hardwood floors.  Splashing onto the television and its stand.  A dizzying array of breakfast smells somehow separating and meeting the nose smell by horrifying smell.  Bananas.  Orange juice.  Peanut butter.

I took a picture.

(I’m not joking.)

But only to text it to Kevin to let him see how my morning was going.  I thought he’d like to know.

I’ve since deleted it from my phone but I cannot seem to locate the button that will delete it from my memory – but I like you guys too much to let that image greet you so unfairly on your computer screen.

And with that one episode my entire day’s schedule and previous night’s preparation shifted dramatically.

I should have known better than to be all celebratory about something that has rarely happened yet -an uninterrupted, goes-exactly-as-scheduled-school day.

And that is the end of this tale.

I hope your last Monday looked differently than mine did.