Monday Morning Coffee

The alarm goes off at 6am. I try to smack at it, but realize that Flake moved it out of arm’s reach. Somewhere inside my groggy mind I’m wishing for a  hockey stick. Eventually I am able to find my screeching nemesis and slap the snooze button. I only sort of squash Flake’s head in the process.

6:15 and it’s at it AGAIN, and somewhere in the foggy recesses of my brain I remember Ace has to be at school 45 minutes early for a practice. Crap. It’s five degrees outside but it feels about -35 outside of the covers as I’m trying to locate my slippers, robe, and mittens to make the trek upstairs to awaken the slumbering wildebeest of a fourteen year old. Four times. Four times until he finally springs from his bed in blind panic and hurls himself into the shower, all the while screaming WHY DIDN’T I WAKE HIM UP EARLIER?

I start the coffee.

7:10 and Flake asks where I put the keys; he wants to start the car. We share a hearty laugh at the idea that I actually KNOW where the keys are. Fifteen minutes later and five minutes before Ace has to be at school we locate them in a bin of GI Joes. I’m sure there’s a good reason for that. I offer Ace a coat I know he won’t take but feel I HAVE to offer in order to be a Good Mother. Secretly praise myself for having at least instilled enough sense that he’s wearing pants rather than shorts. Rescind this as he tells me he brought his laundry down because he wants to wear shorts tomorrow.

I drink some more coffee.

7:45 and Flake is back as the Z stumbles downstairs, loudly proclaiming he is FREEZING. Sometime in the night he has swapped his super warm and fuzzy fleece Ninja Turtle jammies for a pair of boxers and a t-shirt from four years ago. Z is NOT a morning person and I work quickly to present him with his customary bowl of Lucky Charms. The milk is chunky. He is not amused. Neither am I, as I’d been eyeing the Honey Nut Cheerios with some interest. I send him to the shower with promises of pancakes. After I finish this coffee.

8:30 and I can hear Z singing about how much he hates Mondays while he brushes his teeth and combs his hair. I make his lunch, same as every school day- peanut butter and grape jam, an apple, a yogurt, chips, and V-8 Fusion pouch. I check his backpack to make sure I didn’t miss anything, extracting a half eaten granola bar and something glued to a clothespin. I fill up his water bottle and throw in a wrapped, uneaten granola bar for snack. I manage to find BOTH gloves, but no hat. Where’s his hat? I can’t send him to school without a hat. I ask if he knows where it is… he might have left it at Grandma’s house this weekend… two hours away. I make another cup of coffee and go try to find the Emergency Backup Hat so the office staff doesn’t call CPS for my kid having frostbitten ears.

8:45 and I’m back downstairs with the Emergency Backup Hat and what appears to be the 453 changes of clothes my children have made since Saturday evening. Deposit laundry in laundry room on top of OTHER laundry and remind self NOT to wash Ace’s basketball shorts. Argue with Z about wearing Emergency Backup Hat (“But it’s SPIDERMAN and NOBODY is wearing SPIDERMAN” is not a valid reason when Morning Meteorologist Kaylee Dion is telling me that four people have been reported having just frozen in place outside… just FROZEN. Like THAT.) and eventually smoosh it on his head with assorted empty threats. Is lunchbox in backpack? Yes. Are water bottle and uneaten granola bar in backpack? Is library book? No. Crap. What library book? Am reminded that, two weeks ago, he checked out a book on the Winter Olympics. Tear house apart trying to find said book while wishing I could start my own caffeine IV drip. Make note to ask nurse friends if this is doable.

9:05 and Z remembers that he took the book back LAST week, after he’d finished it. Give kisses and send him out the door with Flake and a reminder that we’ll be picking him up a half hour early for his doctor’s appointment. Retreat back to kitchen to clean up morning routine shrapnel and… start a cup of coffee. Decide the laundry and dishes can wait while I read the news… or rather play on Facebook and Buzzfeed while pretending to read the news.

9:15 and Flake returns from the school dropoff run and prepares to head down to his home office to start the day’s conference calls.“Didn’t we just buy coffee? We’re almost out… how is that possible?”

“Not sure,” I murmur, taking another sip of hot, delicious coffee. If I concentrate, I can see sounds.