American Morning Snapshot

I wake up at 4am because I have spent most of my life being a slacker.   This morning I have to get Helen to school by 7:15am so I am too stressed about missing it to sleep any longer.  This is choir practice for God's sake.  If she misses more than one because slacker Mom did not get her ass out of bed, she is off the bleachers.  No 'Texas our Texas' coming out of Helen's little mouth at some future PTA meeting.

I get up, gathering necessary sundries from the dryer and drop them on the stairs for the trip up.  I head to the fridge and gather the ingredients for lunches.  Okay, this makes it sound like I did something.  On stressful mornings I make a deal with the food devil and give my kids lunchables.  I can never in good conscious brag about cooking organic, non-gmo, non-processed real food because at least once a week my kids get a lunchable.  They are kids and they celebrate those days like I have taken them to the other food devil, McDonalds.  Oh yeah, I guess that is another reason I can't brag about our food habits.

I take up the assorted clean clothes items and let the kids pick through until they find the right mix of comfortable.  Thank God they are not yet into stylish, non-rumpled and comfortable.  I am dreading that day.  Everyone is excited it is jacket weather finally so they put on their jackets and hop around outside for a few minutes.  They spot me pulling shoes out of the closet so they hop back in.  It is the last day of the shoe drive at school.  The last day I can pull old shoes out of the closet and let my children donate them to children on the other side of the planet who don't have shoes.   I have had at least three weeks to do this.  Slacker.  Particularly since I know my children.  Breakfast and putting on their own shoes is now of very little interest.  Not to mention the negotiation process with Lauren who will someday be on a tear jerking episode of hoarders where she will not let go of the same pink cowboy boots she demanded we keep today.  "Mom, these are from my old school.  These are my memory boots from Katelyn.  They are the only reminder I have.  You can't give away my memory." The pink boots stay.  The tap shoes, rain boots, cinderella "glass" slippers, dilapidated crocks and perfect sketchers that only fit Lauren for about 10 minutes go.  The carnage is left on the floor in the hall to deal with later.  Time wise we are still okay, which is a miracle.  Of course the children are not eating their breakfast, they are writing notes to the children and sticking them in the shoes.  I can't complain.  I brought this on myself.  Slacker.

Helen has become a pro at inhaling food.  She is the slowest eater but when push comes to shove, she can cram an entire waffle with 4 inches of Reddiwhip into her mouth.  I kid you not.  Gone are the days of cutting up grapes, the ultimate toddler choking hazard.  The new normal is watching this process and thinking "Good, that will hold her over until lunch."

We pull up to the school just as I see a student go in with the music teacher.  They disappear.  It is 7:08am.  I have a moment of panic.  Helen has a moment of panic.  We knock on the door like bears are about to attack.  Ms. Gibson comes out and opens the door.  "Were we suppose to be here at 7am?  I am not a responsible adult.  I can't remember if it is 7 or 7:15am."  Yes, I actually said this.  Fortunately Ms. Gibson is a goddess and assures me we are fine.  It is in fact 7:15am.

Lauren and I pull around to the front.  We made it but now have a gap of time where she and I can sit in the parking lot together before she needs to go in, well, and in fact before they will even let her in.  Schools are one of those precise timing things, like trains in Switzerland.  Doors don't open until 7:30am.  2nd graders and under go to the cafeteria between 7:30am and 7:50am.  The first bell rings at 7:50am when kids can head to their classroom.   The tardy bell rings at 7:55am and the doors lock.  After 8:15am your kid is considered partially absent for the day.  I am an ish person.  As in, I will be there around 9ish.  Hence, the reason I was up at 4am worrying.

We sit together and watch the rest of the choir students go in and the people putting up the tables in the cafeteria.  We see the students whose parents drop them off in front of the school before the doors open because they need to be to work early, the kids who volunteer to help in the drop off line.  Lauren has her little notebook and draws me her imaginary tree house.  It is fantastic.  She starts with the ladder.  It has a slide down into a pool and the slide looks like a rainbow.  She draws a pokemon lamp.  The wave of kids starts to swell.  In the middle of the wave is a policeman with his strawberry hair cut whisker short.  He is probably my age or a little older.  He high fives every child as they go by, one at each hand.  He positively radiates good natured fun.  The kids adore this authority figure who squats down to the shortest scholar and raises his hand high for the tallest.  He makes every child he greets feel important, but it is completely symbiotic.  I imagine the dose of adoration sustains him through encounters with grumpy housewives who have been up since 4am doing 50 in a 40 on their way to Starbucks.

I hated getting up this morning but I loved watching the whole morning process unfold.  It had the feel of stop motion photography.  I was sitting still in a whirlwind and watching it whirl.  The earlier risers, the walkers, the little brothers and sisters.  And of course my people, the ish people.  I watched their kids dive into the doors before they locked and gave a little cheer when I saw the last imp make it in.