Your Daily Miracle: Vocation

Charley.  He doesn't need his hair brushed or fixed or a backpack or clothes.
So he is the only Cockroft, beside Merry, who is perfect, who is always ready.

You would think that since I rise at 6:30 and the last girl goes to school at 8:55, I'd have plenty of time to get all my ducks in a row.  Some parents seem to present their kids to school like perfectly wrapped presents every morning: backpacks organized, healthy lunches tucked away, perky, neat hair, clean socks and tied shoes.  No traces of breakfast on shining round faces.

Yes, yes, you don't have to tell me that the preamble to such examples of brisk and pleasant efficiency may well be anything but pleasant, but still.  We are a product-oriented society, and the final product impresses us.

Here's a little tally of events this morning: Merry rose, I snoozes my alarm clock twice (Martin's at a conference, so I stayed up way too late sewing patches on our worn-out couch cushion covers and watching Indian Summers).  I stumble downstairs, turn on the teapot, verbally pad around on cat feet since Merry and I don't have to say a lot to each other when it's still dark outside.  I notices she has a cough and vowed to make her drink water.  She loaded her bass, flute, heaving backpack in the car, I locked the front door, and we drove off through the fog.  I realized I forgot to give her water, and she realized she forgot to pack a water bottle (cough, cough, cough).  I told her I would drop one off at school when I drop off Elspeth at the bus stop.  Another empty but well-meaning promise.

Back home.  Of course I was still in my PJs and slippers, but nobody can see me in the dark.  Pot of tea, quiet meditation.  It was so quiet and the house was still mine.  So I opened a book and commenced , swearing I would stop in plenty of time to shower and make girls' lunches.  Like all promises made to oneself about ceasing to read a good book in plenty of time, I broke it.

Skipped lunch-making.  Ran upstairs for shower.  The girls were up.  Bless Bea.  She was laying out her clothes on the floor and was ready to go.  Elspeth was ensconced in her covers with her nose in a book.  I literally had to count as I slowly removed it from her hand.  I hate making kids who are dwelling in creative-time rush.  But it has to be done.  It is an imperfect world.

The problem is, Elspeth almost always dwells in creative-time.  She can take any simple task, like brushing her teeth, and blow it into smithereens of splintered, disparate time shards.  She will sing to herself in the mirror, discover something new and exciting in a bathroom drawer, spin a story, anything other than what she is supposed to be doing.  I make her repeat to me:  What are you going to do, Elspeth?  Brush my teeth.  Three minutes later, I hear her belting out a song.  Now, even I can't brush my teeth and sing like a diva at the same time.  And neither can she.

With Elspeth, time is water.  Making her follow a schedule in the morning is like trying to redirect a river, or telling an ocean wave to cease, think about what it's supposed to do next, and then do it.  I put lists all over the house; we recite together; I say annoying things like, "Hey, Elspeth, what am I thinking about?"  She guesses:  Trust.  Time management.  Bingo!  Then, on the way to put her socks and shoes on, she finds a box that needs opening and the contents that need discovering.

Add to this that our dog is neurotic, anxious, and prone to lying under one's feet, shaking all over in supplication for a walk.

Last night Elspeth spent hours doing math homework.  I sat at the table with her.  I feel weird, she'd say (I later found out why, when I emptied her lunch bag of all the decent food she'd left uneaten).  "You're doing great," I'd say.  "Keep going."  Five minutes would pass and she'd heave a sigh and throw her head and arms back dramatically.  I have SO much homework.  I will NEVER get it done.  HOW do you expect me to get all this homework done?  We persevered through pages of Math (a lot of it is catch-up from our Missoula trip). Finally I called an end to it, though it wasn't finished.

Anyway, during my shower Bea kept popping in to remind me that today was Crazy Hair Day.  I want crazy hair.  "After my shower."  I want crazy hair and I want it now.  Ironically, Bea's hair, which is divided by half a dozen cowlicks, is crazy all the time.  "Go downstairs and eat breakfast."

When I stepped out of the shower, Bea was waiting for me.  "You look like you rolled your face in blueberries," I said.  I did, kind of.  An open bag of blueberries had fallen out of the freezer all over her face and the floor.

Elspeth called her over for inspection.  She was still lying in bed.

And so the morning went.  An egg began to roll off the counter and I meant to catch it but instead I smashed it all over the floor where I'd just cleaned up the blue streaks of blueberries.

I don't mean to bore you.  Lunches never got made, however; Elspeth forgot the Math folders of the homework epic the night before; Bea almost missed her bus; I forgot Merry's water bottle.  A mom I used to talk to when I had more time waved at me wryly with hardly a smile because I don't hang out with the put-together moms at the bus stop anymore because I am rushing around but I am also communicating antisocial behavior, apparently.  And that run-on sentence is enough to end this Friday meditation.  Tonight is family fun night at one of the girls' three schools so I have to get some pumpkins and gut them and bring a dish to share.  I will say that I will be prepared, but inevitably someone will forget their shoes or walk out without pants.  How did I get to be an adult?  Who elected me to be a mom of three girls and a participant in this mess of schedules and responsibility?  It is still a mystery to me.

Happy Friday to all of you!