It is dark, I'm snuggled up and cozy when my alarm rudely interrupted my sleep. I stumble to the coffee maker and prepare the coffee, then make rounds to be sure the kids are awake. As usual, H is sprawled out on his bed, but will probably be ready in time to leave for the bus stop. Next, A is up, dressed, and organizing her backpack with needed homework, books, pencils, but upset due to bullying at school. The little guy was in elementary school and rode a later bus; the older 3 had to be at the bus stop each morning by 640. My biggest problem each morning back in those days was T. Hubby had to leave for work early so getting our kids up and delivered to the school bus was part of my morning routine. T often simply refused to remove his butt from his bed, I tried everything: threats, punishment, rewards, ice water. Yes, I once threw ice water on him. I once put him on the bus in his pajamas. I once let him stay home and clean. Every morning, I struggled to get the kids up, ready, papers signed, socks found, breakfast served, lunches made, spelling words studied, straighten the house, and on and on. After the yellow bus rolled away, I repeated the routine, putting the youngest on the bus, driving to work until early afternoon when I arrived home from a 45 min ride filled with calls to teachers, doctors, friends parents to confirm a sleepover, and on and on, just as the bus dropped off the older kids and our neighbor who stayed with us until his dad arrived home. We then tackled the rest of our day. Homework was promptly completed by one, ignored often by the others until I dig through backpacks, finding more for us all to do. Dinner, baths, more homework, too much housework, baseball practice, twirling and lost library books, check ups, teacher conferences and referrals and a missed ortho appointment, hubby working late and the dog chewed up a shoe and WHY IS THERE A MOUSE IN A SHOEBOX IN YOUR CLOSET? Give it back to your friend, please, and go to sleep so we can get up and do it all over again tomorrow.
Why? Because isn't that just life? Struggle through the week so we can spend the weekend recovering and cleaning. Right? Everyone does it. Drag through Monday, cheer for humpday, celebrating Friday. Right?
Not anymore. Never again.
These days, T is in welding school and is up, dressed and gone by 7am, if I'm up I wish him a good day, thrilled that he's finally excited to get up and learn. We added one last kid. He will never know the joy of fighting on a rainy, dark morning as we rush to catch the bus. He won't ever plop down in a desk, one student of thirty, to complete his busy work as the teacher deals with 24 students in need of attention. He won't dread learning and he won't struggle to understand certain behaviors he will be exposed to by peers in his classroom. Behaviors he struggles to understand and actions he knows are wrong, words he suspects are wrong but doesn't ask about, just curiosities that bounce around in his head. No drills to prepare for armed intruders, no cold, tasteless lunch.
Today, as with most of our days, will play out something like this:
I woke at 6, and stumble to the coffee. Hey, some things never change.
I catch up on the news, read a bit, check out a place for an upcoming field trip. I chat with T as he leaves for school. Cajer stumbles out to the couch for some lazy loving and excitement that it's Wednesday, he has art co-op today, his favorite day! I will fix breakfast- maybe cereal, but most often fresh eggs from the back yard. Hubby now works 24s and is at work until this evening. We will go to the library and if it's not raining we will meet up with friends at the playground for lunch. Our days are cozy, we go to sleep when we are tired, wake up when we wake up. Cajer plays outside, building forts, riding his mower, we work in our garden and greenhouse, we clean house together and decide on fun field trips. Back in November he decided learning about Indians was great, so we are still learning and loving it. I get along fairly well with myself, so parent teacher conferences tend to go well. We often play in the creek for science, explore the fort for history, counting rocks as he throws them in the river for math. We cook together, I have much more patience for such things!
Looking back, life was rushed. Why do so many people rush, rush, rush... race to Friday, blast through the weekend and drag into Monday.
No thanks. I'm enjoying life. We have very happily taken over the responsibility of educating our youngest. T hated getting up to go sit in a desk and listen to what his teacher was told to teach him. H was like a size 15 boot in a size 5 shoe box, itching to be released so he could get home and learn what he wanted to learn. Not Cajer. He is excited to wake each day, and decide what to learn each day. Lately it's adding, subtracting, writing letters, counting syllables, volcanoes and dinosaurs.
Life is too short to wallow in stress about how we will survive each day.
Sure, I still have people to see, places to go, meals to be made, dishes, laundry and muddy boys to bathe. But I feel like more of a FAMILY.
Life used to be a cold, quick shower, with a quick scrub to get the job done. Now it's a lazy, warm, sudsy bubble bath. And I like it. My family does, too.
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