A Monday Morning Run

 

When I wake up in the morning, it usually feels like a truck has spent the night testing its brakes on my back. This morning my body was so creaky and worn that it felt like an entire fleet of trucks had run over me repeatedly. All night. This, I'm told, is one of the perks of being in your late thirties. Your body starts to break down incrementally. And then your mind goes. And then before you know it, you're wearing a hat that says, "I want my senior discount" printed on the front. 

But I'm not that old, I keep on telling myself. And my body keeps on telling me that I'm wrong, so very wrong. I had meant to wake up at 5:30 or so, but this morning when my cat pawed at my cheek to ask me for breakfast, I tossed her across the room and went back to sleep. 

Then a couple hours later my middle child poked at my arm. "Mom, Mom," he said. 

"Umph," I replied. The poking continued. My eyes flickered open of their own will, not mine. 

"Look at this," my son said, shoving his ipod in my face. "I got this funny email." He showed me a picture of a cat at a bathroom sink, shrieking at its reflection in the mirror. Just when my eyes fluttered back to their desired position, that is to say, shut tightly, he poked me again. 

"Look at this one too." He brushed his finger across the screen to reveal the next picture. This time the cat sat in a car, its paws on the steering wheel poised to drive. For this, my son woke me up. It was like the time I took our cell phone to the movies and left the kids home to fend for themselves. I told the kids not to call me for just any old thing. "Only an emergency," I said in my most serious tone of voice. I guess I should have specified that an emergency would involve blood, because halfway through the movie I got a call. After climbing over a dozen knees to get to the theater lobby, I whipped open my phone with shaking fingers. I expected my oldest to be on the line to tell me that someone had severed a finger or broken a limb. But no. It was my middle child. "Can I have a burrito from the freezer?" he asked. I can't remember my exact response, but it went something like this: "Arrgghhh."

This morning it was the same child demanding interaction. I'm sure he thought the cat would make me laugh. But I was not in a humorous mood. "You, know," I said to him while still supine, my eyes closed, my arms crossed on my chest, "When a person is laying on a bed with her eyes closed and the room is dark, that means she is SLEEPING." 

He left, and I felt vaguely guilty at how peevish I had been. But then, his departure did give me a few more minutes to re-engage in a weird dream I was having in which I was dressing an owl in baby clothes and trying to rock it to sleep. The owl's solid form felt good in my arms, and when he looked at me, his eyes were gentle and penetrating. I sensed the owl had something to say to me, and I was eager to hear his message. 

But I would never hear the owl speak. After a few minutes, my youngest padded into the room. Even with my eyes closed I knew why he was there. I could hear the crinkle of paper, the tapping of a pen against a notebook. "Will you sign my planner?" he asked. I opened one eye. My son handed me a pen and pointed to a box at the top of his paper. I scribbled my initials in the designated spot and snapped my eye shut. 

Then someone else came in the room. I could tell from the sound of his footsteps that it was my middle son again. He is more nimble than his brothers. Also, he has no sense of personal space, so when he sidles up to you he practically glues his skin to yours. My middle dude leaned over me and shook a plastic bag in my face. At that point, I was squeezing my eyes closed, which wasn't really sleeping but an attempt to communicate to my little turkeys that I would absolutely not get out of bed before I was ready. And I was nowhere near ready. 

"Mom, Mom," he said. "You gotta make me a lunch for my field trip today." He handed me the bag. Inside were two slices of white bread that he had hidden from his brothers for this specific purpose. I slapped my forehead and shot out of bed. "Oh my gosh!" I said. "I forgot!" 

I popped out of bed so quickly that I got dizzy from the effort and had to lean against the wall for a moment while holding my head. I glanced at the clock. I had about five minutes. That was enough time to slather the bread with peanut butter and Nutella, extract a Gatorade from the fridge, fish out the skittles and potato chips I had hidden in the pantry and stuff the whole lot in a paper sack. With one minute to spare I even had time to write "Paul" on the side of the bag in purple pen. Then I kissed the kids goodbye and made my way back to the bedroom. I had hoped to get more sleep, but by that time I was too awake. So I went for a jog (really a slog) instead. 

As I shuffled my way past the elementary school, I saw two women running. I thought they were together, but suddenly one dashed out in front of the other. She had something clutched in one hand and as I got closer, I realized it was a paper sack, the top folded down, a name scribbled on the side. I turned my head to the left and there, pulling out of the school parking lot, was a giant yellow school bus full of children. The woman waved at the bus, wildly pointing toward the sack lunch that she held high for the driver to see. She increased her stride, her arms pumping with determination. I could envision what had happened that morning. Her son went to school thinking it was going to be like any other Monday. Only this day everyone had a sack lunch full of Twinkies and soda. That's when he remembered about the field trip. He would have called his mom in a panic. "We're leaving in twenty minutes," he would have shrieked into the phone. So his mom, who was just sitting down to a nice hot cup of tea and a plate of buttered toast would have jumped up from the table and scoured the kitchen for sack lunch fare. When she had the lunch packed, she would throw herself and the lunch into the car. That's when she would discover that the car wouldn't start, and so she would have to run six blocks to the elementary school in the next five minutes. 

There was a time in my mothering life when I would have called this mom a slacker. Had this happened during the two weeks in 2004 when my household ran smoothly I would have been smug at the sight of a harried mother running towards a school bus with a sack lunch in hand, because I would have been more on top of things. But not now. Now I am so buried under things that I don't even want to get out of bed for fear of what I've forgotten to do, or say, or make. I understand, I wanted to tell this mother. But she was running too fast. And as for me, I'm not even sure I was really awake.  

Comments

[shelby]

(And no judgment is intended here...I do understand. I am with you! This just reminded me of my recent thoughts, or maybe it's my subconscious trying to MAKE me remember!) :)

[shelby]

I can't tell you how entertaining your posts are. (Especially when I have the 'wee one' attached to me as I read my favorite blogs at 2 in the morning.) :)

I had a moment similar to your 'wake-up moment' a couple days ago...I was doing Lauren's hair. She was entertaining herself in the mirror and fumbling with things in her hands. At one point, she started to smile and excitedly turned to show me something (can't remember what now, either an expression she was making or the 'something' in her hand) I brushed it off with a slight smile and nod but was actually a bit irritated because her turning had ruined the braid I was making. And then the thought came to me...how much longer will I have these moments? Moments where I, her mother, am the FIRST person with whom she thinks to share something. For 6 years, I have been her world, and now that she is in school, she has discovered a whole universe of people with whom she can share things. I suddenly got a little jealous...and a little sad...and a little more motivated to show interest in what SHE found of worth, no matter how inconvenient. I want my 'mommy' title for just a little longer. I bet Paul wanted to share the pictures of his cats with YOU because he knows YOU like cats. (And you have to agree that a cat scared of his reflection IS pretty funny!) I think that is so endearing, albeit (admittedly) too early in the morning.

And you still got your morning jog in too...without the panicked feeling 'some' moms had with their morning jog! :)

[Alicia Fish]

I love the ending... You have a great way with words. I always!!! love how you leave off. And start and continue. You are just such a great writer!

[MaryB]

Hey! I get run over by trucks in the night too!
I feel for you...as hard as I try it seems there are always those hectic mornings when things don't go right and there isn't enough time. My favorite words of wisdom from Mom are, "These are the best years of your life."...she's right, of course, but you don't realize how good these days are until years down the road when they're well behind you.

[LauraB.]

What! No carrots in his lunch? hee hee. I used to love preparing field-trip lunches with all the special junk food additions. I'm proud of you Susan, your tastes have expanded. Peanut Butter and Nutella - yum! That sounds so much better than the salad I just consumed. Oh to be a child again!