a day with my merry brood :: happiness abbreviated

+get up. later than you wanted. again.

+make coffee. this entails grinding the coffee, getting out mugs, feeding the other mammals that inhabit your home, all whilst waiting for the kettle to boil. remember you wanted the Chemex coffee maker, even though it takes a million years to brew, it makes the-best-damn-coffee-you-have-ever-tasted, so you don't mind the wait. well maybe. when its all done and poured, you then wait for the coffee to wake you up. again.

+wake up the boys. they are tired because they fought you and fought you on homework last night and it took them forever to finish it. now they are crabby because they went to bed late. again. You are partly to blame because despite threatening to cut story time short, you still read them a chapter or two or three from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.  you feed them breakfast. they are slow. you are anxious. their dad makes them lunch while you start barking orders to get dressed. the oldest, who is a teen, gets impatient. he was ready ages ago. he takes his lunch, puts on his bike helmet and rides off. with out saying good bye. again.

+out the door to walk to school. look at your watch. realize you and the younger two would be better off jogging to school to get there on time. you insist they walk faster. finally they are at school and all the little things come into focus. you are back home. you clean the kitchen and start a cup of tea. you feel calm. you get on the internet to check your email, you enter a time warp.........and suddenly it is time to pick up the boys. again. 

+home. happily and merrily you set out snack. they feast. you chat. they grunt. then they disappear into their rooms or into the backyard and up the tree and onto the roof. you remind them all that it is better to get homework done before dinner and they could really hurt themselves if they fall off. they ignore you. again.

+dinner time. oh boy this is fun! you are glad it is tuesday, not monday because you made spaghetti and sauce. you roll your eyes a bit thinking of the ritual you created of  'mannerless mondays.' it was a small effort to have one evening a week were you and their dad weren't haggling the boys about their manners and they in turn could eat however they wanted. the youngest adores this. he has lately pretended to be a giant T-Rex who can only eat with his mouth, keeping his hands behind his back, slurping up the food in the manner only a boy turned t-rex could do. so you are very glad, that with the spaghetti and the sauce, it is 'tastefully terrific tuesday', which you created to counter the adored mannerless monday. tuesday is the day to practice polished manners in hopes that they don't embrace the mannerless monday bit everyday of the week when they move out of the house. however, you fear this is another lost cause. again.

+dinner is done. dishes stacked. table cleared. boys help enormously. even scrap their plates in the compost and feed the dogs. this makes you smile as you wipe the table down, but you wonder if they are doing this to quell the coming homework battle. then its time for a quick-pinched, scrapped-out homework saga; in which they protest, fight, finally get it done, but oh so later than you want. then its bath and bedtime. again.

+story time with the younger two. the oldest retreats to his room. you smile as the dogs wander into the boys' room with you, oh those dogs love story time as much as the boys do (and you have to admit you adore it too).  one of the pups always jumps on the middle's bed, the sweetest one lies patiently on the floor next to. before you open a book, the youngest insists on working on the novel/screen play he is writing with you. he chats happily about "the lonely scout" who is traveling with a wizard looking for his lost brotherhood of scouts. you think to yourself, if this one doesn't end up an architect designing lego products, he has a future in crafting stories.

+you finally settle in to read. you kiss the youngest's head and smell his sweet hair. you remember they are all still little in so many ways. it will be years before they dance out the door in any official way. once, in jest, you calculated the hours you spent over the last 12+ years reading to them. between you and your husband the hours were staggering; thousands upon thousands of hours. but they were hours well spent. a time of reconciliation, renewal and wishes of sweetest of dreams before they fell asleep to the lilting sounds of a story well read. you hope the text, the love of language, the words tumbling across a page will stay with them forever. so you read and you read. they fall asleep. you kiss them goodnight on their sweet foreheads whispering how much you love them. soveryverymuch. again.

xxoo.