to slam the door, or not slam the door

There are a lot of nutty people in the world.  As luck would have it a decent, random-sample of them manage to cross paths with me.  More specifically, they hire me to watch their kids.  

This morning, I was trying to conduct a makeshift workout in my family room.  I didn’t have much time before the tots started to get dropped off.  Coach was home, so I could have gone to the health club early.  There weren’t any classes that I wanted to attend, and I have not recovered from running 4 miles last weekend.  I opted to stay home, workout a bit in my house, and be here when the kids got dropped off vs. have Coach handle the babysitting kid drop off.  

My makeshift workout includes things like jumping rope, ‘stair’ stepping on the fireplace hearth, skaters, and putting a towel under each foot and doing a mountain climber on the hardwood floor.  Let’s not forget lunges, bicycles, planks, and bridges.  

I should have included some boxing moves, so that I was prepared.

One 18 month old was in the family room with me when I started to wind down.  I could hear the mom of the triplets arrive.  The mudroom opens to the kitchen.  I couldn’t see the mudroom from the parallel family room.  The 3 high schoolers were eating at the kitchen table.  Coach was making breakfast at the island.  The triplets entrance seemed to be delayed.  Eddie shot me a look.  He mouthed to me that he was freezing and motioned to me to close the interior door to the garage.  We live in Chicago.  It was COLD.  My kids were in their pajamas.  

This photo is a recreation.  This is the back
 of Eddie sitting at my kitchen table -
 right where he was that fateful morning.
  In front of him is the family room where
I had no view of the mudroom.  To the far
left is our mudroom and the white door
that you can partially see is the door that
was unintentionally slammed.  Missing is a
 small, frazzled woman dealing with two four
 year olds who typically enter crying because
 they want to get their way and she struggles
 to figure out how to make them
 happy vs. just telling them that life isn't fair.  

What to do when people are freezing and a door is left open?  In my book, you close it.  I leaned into the mudroom.  The triplets mom was standing in the garage dealing with her two 4 year olds that she was about to drop off.  It is always something with them.  They enter in tears because they want to carry a backpack, or had hoped to unbuckle themselves from the car seat, or thought they might open the door themselves.

I said, ‘We have to keep this closed.’  And I closed the door.  I admit the door slammed shut.  Not really my intention to slam it in their faces, but I don’t do anything in slow motion in the morning.  I keep things at a pretty quick pace.  

Narcey (rhymes with Marcy and is short for Narcissism) entered the house a split second later.  She hollered, ‘Really!?’  Then she huffed about how that was not a ‘good morning’.  I just looked at her and said, ‘My kids were eating breakfast and they were cold, so they asked me to close the door.’  

I think she corrected me further.  Then Narcey said, 'I am VERY sick.  I had 12 people sleeping in my house over Thanksgiving!'  Then she said something about how it was only like 30 seconds (that the door was open).  Then, confident that she had shared adequate irrelevant information, Narcey stormed out.  I spun around and faced my family.  They were all frozen in disbelief- maybe a little frozen with the climate of the room, too.

What just happened?