Morning Ritual

The sweet sounds of Glenn Miller’s orchestra playing Moonlight Serenade awaken me.  I lift my body from the bed, drinking my water down then stumble into the kitchen for coffee.  I sit.  I wait.  Slowly, soon I begin to tick and hum, I’m ready. I call Ellray, our puppy, “Let’s wake up Jake”.  I hope and wish and dream about him waking easy.  Ellray jumps on the bed, sits on him, licks his neck.  “Wake up wake up wake up wake up”….he barely moves, “one finger cold, two fingers hot”.  This is our system of communication.  I need to know whether he wants hot or cold chocolate. I need to know.  No answer, I head back to the kitchen to pull down the tall vintage glass with the diamond print, grabbing a spoon.  Holding the hershey’s high as I pour the syrup down the sides, filling the bottom.  As I pour the milk into the glass, I begin to clang the spoon around the inside of the glass mixing milk and chocolate. I love the sound, making it louder than it needs to be.  I want him to remember, just like I do, the sounds of morning rituals.  He stumbles in with half his bed wrapped around him, “Toast, bagel, fruit, tortilla, what will it be?”, no answer, “tortilla it is”.  I proceed gayly, humming to myself, having conversations with the dogs, entertaining us all with my silly voices, random thoughts and stupid rhymes.  KUT news in the background.  Meanwhile, I’m stealthfully eying him, like a hostage watching it’s captor.  Checking for signs of life, a flicker of a smile or chuckle.  Soon the sugar kicks in and my son, not this beast, will emerge. 

Laughter, I hear it, a smile at one of the voices I’ve made for the dogs and we are off,  “15 minutes, you’ve got 15 minutes”.  It seems like forever but not for the master of distraction.  “Get dressed, socks, shoes, teeth brushed”. It seems so simple, but it’s not.  There is plenty of time to display the pooping tortilla or pretending he has stolen something and I must find it, or kiss and hug all the dogs or crawl under Dad while he does yoga.  GET DRESSED! 

Packing his lunch, the same thing, fruit, meat, veg, candy, salty snack, clif bar and a fruit twizzle.  Slamming the bottle of water into the lunchbox, I shove it all in his backpack.  GET DRESSED!  Pulling his clothes on, he is momentarily distracted by a pencil sharpener, the minutes are ticking. I change into an acceptable amount of clothing to walk him to school.  BRUSH TEETH!  NOW!  “I DID”, he yells.  We live ½ a block from the school but sometimes we are so late we actually drive .  “LET’S GO”.  I stand by the door with backpack in hand.  I’m freaking out and ready to go as a stand-in for him, just leave him behind. The coffee has kicked in good now and I’m tweaking, I’m flying.  He is kissing each dog good-bye, there are FOUR OF THEM.  He is smiling, we are out the door and now, the mood changes as we walk, no stress, we are on the road.  This is when we squeeze in some fun or important conversations or maybe our schedule for the day. Sometimes he tells me about his most recent superhero he has created, I know I’ll miss these days.  I may tell him a story of when I was young. Today we talk about Lady Rainicorn from Adventure Time. We ponder why she only speaks Japanese and is it real Japanese.  We laugh about how Jake the Dog got a translator for her to talk to Finn but she sounded like an old man.  Then we recap last night’s latest obsession, Heroes, we are junkies.  We cross the busy street, my excuse for still walking him even in 5th grade.  “Have a good day”, I wrap up our conversation quickly and act cool and detached. I’ve learned to no longer expect a hug or a kiss, something I couldn’t have imagined I would be able to do 4 years ago.  As he walks alone, he looks back for a subtle wave and I know it means, “I love you”.  I turn and walk in silence, home, careful to not step on a crack, I don’t want to break my mother’s back.