February 13, 2012

a blissful, lazy morning

Saturday morning I either exhibited brilliant or terrible parenting skills, depending on your point of view. By Friday night, Will had been on a class trip to Ghana (yes, the Africa one - who goes there on a class trip?) for one full week, with three days to go and I was, well, a little beat. Seven days of true solo parenting and not just daddy is really really busy solo parenting plus three cases of the flu had worn me out. So before I sent them to bed, I made a rule for the morning.
"You can play Wii from the time you get up tomorrow until the time that you wake me up."

In other words, let your mother sleep.

When I was young, I reveled in my Saturday morning solo cartoonathons. I loved getting up before everyone else to watch exactly what I wanted, to make myself the breakfast I wanted, to have the house quiet and, in a way, all to myself. But my kids have never had any interest in that. They don't want to be up alone. They want someone (me) to be up with them. Neither of them is a very early riser so at least they aren't shaking me awake at the crack of dawn, but still, it would be nice to have a good old laze about now and then.
I actually woke up long before they "woke" me. I snuck into the kitchen to make coffee and then brought the tray back to bed with me, opened the curtains to watch the snow falling outside and curled back up with the worlds laziest dog at my feet.

Even after they knew I was "awake" and I'd sent them off to play something other than Wii, I stayed put. A little knitting, a little dreaming. I read a whole book. A short book, but still the whole thing. Cover to cover. The sad and beautiful Coventry by Helen Humphreys. Much like the last book I read of hers The Lost Garden, Coventry was somehow detached, like reading an echo. I think it had all of 90 pages, including all the blank pages between chapters, but there is something delicious about reading a whole book in one sitting. I remember the last time I did it. I was reading Home, sitting in a chair in our rented house in Charlottesville and I kept thinking I'd put it down at the end of the chapter, except it had no chapters, so I didn't put it down till the end.
Somehow I doubt I could recreate such a lazy day every week. Too many soccer games, grocery trips, things that need to be seen and done for it to be a long standing habit. But oh, it was blissful while it lasted.