I Can Wash My Hair!
Last night, I went to bed last. I was up an hour after everyone else, doing important stuff like calculating Dylan’s possible GPA with or without his various C grades.
When I woke up, I forfeited my shower in order to make breakfast for the boys. At some point, Bill showed up in the kitchen.
“You know that really nice alarm you got me?” he asked. “It stopped making sounds!” Bill was truly shocked. I was not. The alarm is at least a decade old, and has enough buttons on it that something should have broken once a month. I’m impressed that it lasted as long as it did.
I started making lunches. Dylan came screaming down the stairs a few minutes later, late as always and racing out the door to catch the bus. I anticipated this, and had wrapped his breakfast in foil to keep it warm.
But Bill, since he was home, volunteered to take Dylan to school. I was able to leisurely finish making his lunch, and sent them both off with all the right stuff.
I can take a shower, I thought, AND I can wash my hair! The previous day, I had spilled half a bag of pine nuts all over the pantry floor, and spent half an hour pulling pine nuts out of iced tea boxes, so I hadn’t had time to wash my hair.
I finished making Shane’s lunch and raced upstairs. I had to be at work in an hour.
I passed Shane on the steps.
“I left your breakfast on the counter,” I said, kissing him on the head. I didn’t want the dog to get it. “See you in 15 minutes!”
“Okay,” he said.
I hopped in the shower, so excited to have a moment to get something done for myself.
The water was lukewarm. I took a very fast shower and jumped out, shivering.
Then I raced downstairs with a towel on my head and printed out seven pages of algebra for Shane to study while he finished his breakfast. Shane seemed oblivious to the fact that he had a quarterly assessment in a few hours.
“You were supposed to do this yesterday!” I declared, throwing the pages next to his plate and running back up the stairs.
We were ready to go, surprisingly, on time.
All I had to do was drop off Shane, go home, cook and eat a couple of eggs, and get to work on time. (As a substitute teacher, I have absolutely no idea how parents do this stuff every day.)
On the way to school, Shane said, very simply, “Do you know what I hate about cliffhangers?”
Then he didn’t say anything at all. He just turned his head, and looked out the window.
I love my life.