avocado8

Morning Joe

The last two mornings I've had to go up and wake the Beaner after 8:15am and then rush to get him ready for school. This morning was more normal in the sense that he came into our room at about the same time my alarm was telling me to get up and exercise, you lazy dork. I didn't hear him come in (probably because I was busy fumbling for the alarm), but a minute or two later I heard him say to Al, "I want to snuggle mommy," and Al give the OK. The Beaner padded around to my side of the bed, and I let him in.

We snuggled for about fifteen minutes, and then he said, "is it Sunday?"

"No, it's Thursday," I replied.

"I wish it was Sunday, so we could go have coffee, just you and me."

"I think if we'd gotten up and dressed when my alarm went off instead of snuggling, we would have had time for coffee before school. What time is it?" I looked at the clock: 7:52. "Do you think you can get dressed in 8 minutes or fewer?"

"Yes."

"OK, if you can get dressed in 8 minutes, we can go have coffee before school."

I got dressed in 8 minutes, but the Beaner needed a bit of help with the hurrying; at 8:01, he was still in his jammie top. "Hurry, hurry, hurry!" I said, picking out a t-shirt for him and encouraging him to grab the pants and sweater that were on top of the piles.

"I know why you agreed to have coffee, and why you're hurrying now," he said. "It's because YOU'RE thirsty. YOU want coffee."

I think it's interesting in general that he's now trying to divine motive, but he was wrong, and it annoyed me a little. "Beaner, please focus on YOU and what you're responsible for: Getting dressed. I wasn't planning to have coffee today; I was going to get a cup of tea and go directly to work. I'm doing this for YOU. YOU are the one who asked for coffee, and I said yes for YOU."

"Oh."

I tossed him his socks and told him I'd meet him downstairs, where I'd be making his lunch. (I'd forgotten about that when I did my original time calculations.) A veggie corndog, some avocado slices, a few carrot sticks, 5 corn chips, and a frozen juicebox later, and the Beaner had gotten Al to help him tie his shoes and was putting on his raincoat.

We left the house at 8:11, made it to the Starbucks at 8:21, got our drinks at 8:28, and set an alarm for 8:40.

We made it to school by 8:50, despite a cold, driving rain and a stiff wind on the walk back. My legs are still wet and I'm just warming up 30 minutes later, but I feel great. It's nice to start the day by saying Yes to my kid; I hope it makes his day the way it's making mine.