I put the wheels in motion a few days ago (sometimes karma is fast-acting) while disposing of a cache of promotional e-mails: Right before hitting the delete button, I had a change of heart and forwarded my latest World Market message to Kevin. It said:
We join you in welcoming His Holiness, The Dalai Lama to Indiana for a series of talks. Then it went on to say how proud World Market is to offer the exiled leader of Tibet a Lotus rug to sit on during his appearance in Indianapolis on the Conseco Fieldhouse stage. Kevin is something of an armchair theologian and a closet Buddhist and was profoundly moved by his previous experiences with the DL. So, he was predictably excited by this bit of corporate marketing.
Opting out of the big public lecture on Saturday (Our Saturdays are consumed by soccer), Kevin was ecstatic to discover that there were also smaller-scale teachings in Bloomington on Wednesday with a few remaining seats.I was thrilled for him.Being a parent of five means little time for study and reflection, and Kevin said this came at a really good time--exactly what he needed.
Unfortunately, we failed to recognize a minor flaw in the plan: See, attending the Dalai Lama's seminar meant that Kevin would have to leave for IU well before 6:00 AM on a school morning. No big deal, I mean, it was he who would have to wake up early, right?Only that wasn’t the problem!
There were actually two main flaws in the plan: First, Kevin is our family's certified alarm clock. He sets it on his cell phone every night and, after letting it go off a few times in the morning (sometimes way more than a few), He wakes Kyla while I get up to prepare her lunch, iron her clothes, etc. and she gets herself ready (while Kevin usually lies back down to catch a few more z's). Then I transport Kyla to school while Kevin wakes up the rest of our tribe (except for Levi, who, at the ripe old age of almost two, has taken to sleeping in), starts breakfast, and moves them along till I return home to serve as morning drillmaster, barking out tasks and rhetorical questions about combing teeth (when it’s a really stressful morning), brushing hair and getting dressed.
Ok,ok....I’m not always that nice: One morning I demanded of Izzy as we were flying out the door, "Izzy, why did you wait till the last *F-ing* minute to tell me you couldn’t find your shoes?"Her respone, sarcastic with a smile: "Uh, cause I don't say the "F" word...")
Yeah, I know...I digress. But you have to admit that story was funny!
So, needless to say, once Kevin was on the road (to enlightenment, and Indiana), his hundred or so (give or take) calls to the house, my cell, and Kyla's phone did not disturb anyone’s slumber. And, secondly (flaw #2), neither Kevin nor I, in haste to get him to the first session on time, which was probably (and ironically) about mindfulness, considered exactly how Kyla was going to get to school...when there would not be an adult at the house for 25 minutes or so, with the four other siblings left sleeping to fend for themselves. If we had risen at a decent hour, I could have forced them all up and prodded them into the car, I suppose. Or if we had any foresight at all, we could have lined up my Dad who lives one street over and is early in leaving his house each day.
So, here I was already feeling like the Worst Mother Ever (Kyla was ticked at me for waking her up late when she had asked us to wake her up at 6 so that she could finish her homework) Not to mention, her backpack with her lunchbox never made it downstairs, so I had to pack her lunch with a double-ziploc bag of ice (this is due to the fact that the frozen icepack she usually takes to school remained upstairs and unfrozen--she hates this especially), and beyond that, her uniform pieces were MIA. Luckily for me this morning, it turned out that she was actually thrilled when she learned that there was no other choice but to relax and push back her normal schedule, giving her time to finish her homework while the others got ready. And, quite unfortunately for me and for Kyla, I had to iron her totally wrinkled pants from the day before on the hardwood floor. This would be because the ironing board I had Kevin drag up here to iron Raleigh’s room curtain (still in basket, un-ironed, after two weeks) was now occupied with lunchboxes, mail and other stackable oddities/necessities and the couch and ottomans that I would normally resort to as makeshift ironing boards were occupied with unfolded laundry and stacks of clothing destined for Goodwill. No surface is safe in our house.
So, under the circumstances, I bought off the twins for lunch again since we were down to our last icepack and it was reserved for Raleigh’s lunchbox (Raleigh, usually the most easygoing of the three, is quite fragile when it comes to things being out of sorts in her daily routine (and, since she was also the one whose lunchbox made it to the kitchen the night before, she became the proud recipient)! We are actually experiencing an icepack shortage at home due to the fact that Izzy has had two lunchboxes as of late that have come home with what we have come to call the Cheese Touch(reference: Diary of a Wimpy Kid; I will explain in a future blog) and had to be thrown away.
Once we finally made it out the door, and thinking of how it would all go over
with the powers that be at Kyla’s school, I began having major flashbacks to a previous morning when I had to bring Kyla’s lunchbox to the office while Levi sported what has since become known as his "unemployment pants" and I, un-showered and uncombed, wrapped him in my shawl. Today was no different; Levi was caked in fake Oreos from Whole Foods(I did manage to dress him in clean pants and throw on a pair of sneakers this time) and I was still wearing my shawl, as it was cold and rainy, again…(I secretly wondered if the office thought this was my daily look. Then, I secretly wondered to myself if it isn’t my daily look!)
So when we finally arrive to deal with secretaries and administrators, our timing brings us face to face with a lovely and very well-dressed Mrs. Artman, a 6th-grade science teacher who dropped in to say hello and to tousle Levi’s hair. This is especially disconcerting to me as I am old friends with her husband, Jeff, and every time I run into this couple at a soccer or school function, they appear very clean and organized, while we are, well..consistently disorganized and unkempt! Mr. and Mrs. Artman recently attended Kyla's school soccer playoffs (the girls on the team adore her and are friends with her in spite of the fact that she was never their teacher) whereupon my twins spent the entire time sitting beside them whining and fighting! Their children, of course, were perfect angels and practiced impeccable behavior!
Anyway, I rambled through my story about how Kevin went to see the Dalai Lama seeking a healthy dose of mindfulness and compassion and ironically neither of us had given any thought to the other 4 children who would be left sleeping to fend for themselves while I drove Kyla to school....
And then Mrs. Artman shared a reassuring story of her own about how one time, their family got trapped inside their car inside their own garage in the morning because the electric door refused to open.
It was then that I had my own moment of enlightenment: I thought to myself, WOW, that is exactly the kind of thing that would NEVER happen to us, because one, we don’t even have a garage and two, even if we did....we would not be organized enough to be able to fit both of our cars into it in the first place! OR, we’d lose the garage door opener and no one would ever be able to park there!
The line for excuses is tiny on the school office sign-in chart, so I chalk our morning up to "overslept" and make a quick exit, hoping that at least one of us is getting our fill of peace, love and understanding while the other enjoys yet another morning of complete and total chaos.
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