Mornings

Every morning at 7:00 am my alarm starts chirping, but I'm too tired to get up so I nudge my kid who appeared in my bed sometime after I fell asleep and tell him to "pass me my phone" and then I hit snooze.  It goes off again and I try really hard to get up, but my eyes are so heavy, my bed warm, and the air is too cold so I swipe open my phone hoping that maybe looking at some news or Instagram will wake me up or somehow magically inspire me to take the plunge to that cold world outside my bed.  No luck.  I fall back asleep until the alarm goes off again and maybe again until finally one of my kids gets really stressed out about being late and decides to get up (the other one couldn't care less about going to school: she's in the kitchen cutting paper while the rest of us sleep).  It still takes me a few minutes more.

We get dressed, grab some food, and head out the door where we find the car cold and dewy with its windows all fogged up. We don't have any time to waste waiting for it to warm up because we stayed in bed so long and we can't be late.  I used to have a windshield scrape-y thing somewhere, but I can't find it so I rustle around the center console and door pockets looking for something to wipe the windows with so I can actually see out of them.  I find a stiff wax paper kind of bag in the side of the door and use it to scrape the windows and mirrors.  I can't decide what to do with the wet, dirty paper so I stick it back inside the door pocket and get in.

Each day is basically the same.  The same reluctance to get out of bed, the same panic of my oldest child, and the same old, dirty, paper bag to wipe the windows.  I guess I just thought you might want to know...

Apples and Oranges

Every day at 2:15, I wait outside of school to pick up Caiden and Elliott.  Caiden comes out first and greets me with an over-the-top shout, "MOMMMMMYYYY!", her face lights up, and she runs full-force at me before throwing herself at my legs, sometimes jumping up and grabbing on to me.  She does this pretty much every single day.

Everyday--along with this brilliant greeting--Caiden presents me with a piece of fruit, in her typical nonchalant way (Caiden has two modes: over-the-top and nonchalant). "Here Mommy." as she thrusts a piece of fruit at me without really looking at my face.  I've tried to tell her that she doesn't need to take apples from school for me, but she doesn't listen.  Every day its the same: a green apple, "Here Mommy, I got this for you."  Maybe that's why I thought to write this today--today was different.  It was a mandarin today, which was kind of a shock after months and months of green apples.  I have green apples in my fridge, in my purse, in the pockets of Caiden's backpack, and driving home today I looked down and found one in the center console of my car. When I saw it there, I thought about Caiden; Caiden, who can be like a stone wall on the outside that hides a deep, deep well--a well that sends little green apples of love bobbing to the surface of its mysterious, unknown depths.