This morning was… complicated.

I got a sense of the teenage years to come when Parker didn’t want to get out of bed. Normally not an issue.

Complicating matters, he had a doctor’s appointment at 8 a.m. Which meant we needed to be out of the house by 7:45 a.m. And for those keeping track, that’s a whole 15 minutes earlier than normal. An eternity in morning-rush-with-kids time.

Nothing went all that smoothly.

Except, that is, for lunch packing. Thanks to the miracle that is leftovers, I was able to bang together his lunch in record time.

I started with leftover mac and cheese from yesterday. Pop that in a thermos and it’s good to go. Then I moved on to the steak we had for dinner last night. Slice it thin then slap it and some cheese between frozen slices of whole-wheat bread, then pop that in a skillet for a few minutes. Done.

Finally, some berries and some leftover low-sugar apple crisp I made for yesterday’s breakfast.

Done.

And we finally, with some trouble, got out of the house. Not on time. Closer to 7:51 a.m. But at least we got out of the house.

Counting the hours until we leave for Miami to cover the South Beach Wine and Food Festival…