BLOG: Who feeds their kid moldy spaghetti?!

[Please note: The main purpose of this blog is to post the pictures of Mixed and Happy families. But while I'm here, I might as well let you take a peek into my Mixed and Happy life, so I'll be blogging in-between picture posts.]

Hubby, who is a firefighter, worked a 24-hour shift last night, which meant that this was my morning to get all of the kids to school before I headed to work. But, this morning was a little different because of two things:

1. My niece spent the night (Making that, uh, five kids)
2. I promised the three older kids that we would have a breakfast date before school

That meant that I was up by 6 and out the door before 7. Morning routine without hubby can be chaotic because someone's always missing a shoe or a lunchbox or a good attitude.

Because we were pressed for time, I didn't make lunches. "Just throw your lunch boxes in the car; We'll stop by Publix or something," I said to the kids in the middle of our stampede out the door.

After dropping the babies off at day care, we stopped by our favorite little cafe. The kids watched with delight as the waitress piled plates of pancakes, scrambled eggs and cheese grits on our little table in the corner.

It was perfect. We stuffed ourselves.

I dropped the kids off at school and picked up lunch from Publix. In the parking lot at work, I opened the plastic grocery bag and began stuffing their lunch boxes. "Ugh. What the heck is this?"

I had just made a discovery in my daughter's Hello Kitty lunchbox. There was a red container, partially opened, that must have been from lunch earlier in the week. Somehow, I think she took it out of her lunchbox earlier in the week, left it in the van and threw it back in this morning.

However it ended up back in her lunchbox, I'm not sure. But one thing I was sure of: ick. I left the icky container on the front seat and finished packing the lunchboxes.

A few minutes later, sitting at my desk, I called hubby who had just finished his shift. "I need you to take the kids' lunches to school. I didn't have time this morning."

He agreed. "Oh, and E needs his as well. It's on the front seat." Mr. E. is the 3-year-old. Hubby called me later to tell me that everything was taken care of. Kids had lunches=I could rest.

And I did rest easy until later that day when I walked into Mr. E's day care and his teacher handed me a ... red container! "Um, this didn't look or smell very good, so we gave him something else."

"What? What? How did you? Why do you have the ... red container!?"

"It was in his lunch box."

And then I did a quick mental rewind: Me on the phone. Hubby on the other line. Me to hubby: "Oh, and E needs his as well. It's on the front seat." Quick revelation: this is the red container I always pack Mr. E's spaghetti-os in.

"Oh my gosh. No. he. didn't."

Yes, he did, though. Hubby packed Mr. E's lunchbox with that dreaded red container. You know what it had in it, don't you? Moldy spaghetti! We sent Mr. E to school with a lunch box filled with moldy spaghetti as the main course.

I hung my head in shame and began quickly explaining how, really, I do not feed my children moldy spaghetti. The teacher laughed and said "We know. We figured there was some kind of mix up."

I mean, I know I'm dreadful in the kitchen, but really, I'm better than that. How embarrassing!

Oh.
My.