Morning parenting

In recent weeks, Gregg has begun to take on a greater role in Morning Parenting.

Morning Parenting occurs in the pre-dawn hours and continues until the departure for school, and often involves making small, stuffed animals talk to each other in distinct voices (including the drunken puppet, Juan Carlos, who speaks with an indistinguishable Latin American accent); the toasting of mini bagels and the stripping of stems from grapes; finding the OTHER cup and the OTHER plate in the jumble of kids kitchenware in the lowest drawer in the kitchen; and, without fail, changing a diaper that was taped down at least 12 hours prior.

While I am able to do all of this with the great alacrity that comes from practice and my lack of a Y chromosome, and even manage to make myself a cup of Peet’s coffee and put on some semblance of Real Clothes, Gregg finds this a bit more challenging.

A sampling of an oft-repeated conversation in our kitchen:

Gregg: What should I make for his lunch?
Me: A sandwich and some fruit. [NOTE: THIS IS THE SAME LUNCH HE HAS EVERY DAY]
Gregg: What kind of sandwich?
Me: Ham, cheese, peanut butter and jelly, whatever is there.
Gregg: The ham looks old.
Me: Yes it does.
Gregg: What should I do?
Me: What?
Gregg: I don’t think I should use this. What should I do?
Me: Make a sandwich.
Gregg: Like what?

And so it goes….

Today, after spending quite some time in creating a sandwich (peanut butter, as I’m sure you’re dying to know) he left the sandwich in the lunch bag in the backpack on the counter…and left for school. When he realized that he had forgotten Shawn Joaquin’s lunch, his response was “well, they have snack, don’t they?” Clearly, he can not picture the look of shock and woe when Shawn Joaquin discovers that he is the only kid not to have lunch when they all sit down at the little knee-high tables. Nor can he hear the wails of “I want FOOD! I want MY FOOD! Where is my OTHER FOOD?!!!!” that immediately echoed through my head. So off I went…

When I arrived at school, the kids were outside at recess. This was no good. No good at all. I had to sneak in the back door of the school to avoid Shawn Joaquin’s mama-radar, sure to kick in and rob him of all self-sufficiency and fill him with a desire to be picked up, PICKED UP NOW. Once inside, I went in the office to peer out the window at him, just wanting to make sure that Gregg had not forgotten his shoes, jacket or other item of clothing. After 20 seconds of panic – HE’S GONE! HE’S GONE! – I spied him on the jungle gym at its highest point. Now some mothers would panic at this. I, on the other hand, was THRILLED.

This is the child who needs to hold hands to walk up or down the stairs, who wants to be picked up when walking down the street if more than 3 people are on the sidewalk in the next 100 feet. And there he was, at the top of the jungle gym, laughing like a drunken monkey. For the next 10 minutes I watched him, all of his fear and anxiety and neediness gone. I watched him follow E.J., whom he calls Bluejay, as he tromped across the playground. Shawn Joaquin chased bubbles, hugged two girls, threw his hat in the air and yelled “yeehaw, I’m a cowboy” for no apparent reason, and danced like an old man with bent knees and arms akimbo – happy to be a kid on a playground wearing dinosaur rain boots and socks with race cars.

And I was, in that moment, so happy to be the mother of that little boy, filled with a love so deep and overwhelming that I had to stop myself from crying and rushing out the door to sweep him into my arms. It’s moments like this that make all that Morning Parenting — and all the hours between sunrises — seem like the easiest and best thing I’ve ever done.