My 7 year old and I wake up at 6:30 this morning as usual. We sleepily make our way to the kitchen, have a huge morning hug (I’ll hang onto that as long as I can!) and start fumbling about the kitchen for our respective needs. I start the coffee, there’s the filter, the two scoops of coffee, the water, the replacement of various cans and containers neatly to their original place. Then I grab bowls and spoons and throw them on the table. Meanwhile, my son, who has a solid 30 minutes to eat has gotten lost in one of the three things he needs to do to sit down at the table and eat. And time begins to slip through the hourglass. You know that old hourglass that Days of Our Lives used to have on its screen?
My memories are from childhood, but that’s what I felt someone had started playing over my head. I watch my son pour the biggest bowl of cereal (he’s not possibly going to eat all that, right?) and then start picking all the raisins out of it—slowly and gingerly. I’ve never seen him do anything gingerly before. It’s cute and super irritating. And of the 15 brands of cereal in the pantry, this is the one he chose, right?! The ONLY one with raisins. I’m pretty sure he’s doing it on purpose. I remind him that he only has 15 minutes to eat now. Yep, 15 minutes down the ole hourglass. And five more minutes later, sitting next to him, quietly sipping on my coffee, I watch him chew each bite and pull random samples from his mouth, slightly chewn (I made that word up this morning and wanted to try it), partially digested by mouth goo and falling from his fingers onto his new uniform. It’s almost too much for me to bear.
“What are you doing, dear?” I ask, my jaw slightly clenched. “You have like 5 minutes to finish.”
“I’m checking to be sure there are no raisins in my cereal.” He lets me know. “And I have 6 minutes, not 5, mom. The big hand isn’t on the 11 yet.” Wow, good to know the previous annoying could be superseded easily.
And in one of the ‘moments’ that I know isn’t going to inspire either of us to be better people, I say, “You will never have that cereal again for breakfast if it takes this much effort to eat. It has taken you 20 minutes to prepare that cereal to eat. And we’ve got to get ready!”
Really, CC, that was necessary?!
Now before you judge me too much, it’s the part of the morning where he finishes and we argue about whether he should leave the additional cereal and WASTE it, god forbid, or blah, blah, blah (his argument, not mine). And ten minutes later, no one has won—except the yelling portion of our day—which I hate more than pulling out my nose hairs with tweezers. My husband tells me it’s awful. (See, I do say nice things about you in my blog, honey.)
The child will argue about anything and everything. So I always fear the end of the half hour because the sand slipping will never be returned to me. There is no “hurry” button on this child. So I find myself always trying to avoid the end fight by nagging the whole way there. Wow, this is how my mom turned into the naggess of the universe.
We got to the end of breakfast, and there was no yelling. But I wondered how many parents go through breakfast anxiety on school days?? And what do I drink next week in my coffee? You know, something to make me let go and not care if he doesn’t eat breakfast, something to make me not worry that he’ll be hungry or this or that insignificant thing. I’m guessing more coffee might not be the way to go. Anyway, Happy Friday! Here’s to sweating the little things, being a nag sometimes and worrying about the ridiculous.