Our mornings are minefields. One minute Kinderblogger is playing Legos and Toddlerblogger is spilling yogurt and Cherrios on the floor and the next minute Kinderblogger is hysterical and Toddlerblogger is holding a part of Kinderblogger’s Lego car, also crying, and I before I can even put down my eyelash curler Kinderblogger pushes his brother down and kicks him in the back. They both get time outs. They both are crying. I’m in my underwear and wondering if the neighbors can really see me through the sheer curtains. Two minutes later, Toddlerblogger has said he’s sorry and has gone back to his breakfast. But Kinderblogger is wounded, now he has proof that we really should get rid of his younger brother. And he doesn’t care that Legos are made to be rebuilt. “It’s broken and this is the worst day ever,” he cries. I make him get dressed before he can play again, but he won’t recover and he whines and stiffens his arms to reach out for his Legos. His whine is a slow, low groan with a bratty twang that’s like he’s stomping his foot: uhhh, uhhh, uh, uh, uh! I put the clothes in front of him but he won’t stop reaching for the Legos so I try to distract him by starting to dress him, but his uh uh uh and ridgid arms pointing to the toy make me get up in disgust and go back to putting on my makeup. I watch out of the corner of my eye as he, hellbent on making his point, tries to put on a sock with one hand while the other is still outstretched for his toy, uh, uh, uhhing all the while. He is going to be very late for school.

I want to shake him straight. But instead I ignore him and dab eye-tightening gel on puffy bags under my eyes. It’s 8:06 and I need to go. I can’t be late for this breakfast, this assignment could add a serious chunk of change into our house fund. Fatherblogger calls down from upstairs and tells me to go so I won’t be late. I come out of the bathroom and see that Kinderblogger is dresse and bleeding. His new nervous habit is to pick his nose, and sometime he picks it so fiercely it bleeds, the whole thing is gross and troubling. Why does he do this? And when is it going to stop? I lead him back into the bathroom and try to gently wash his face. Now I have to stop rushing. He keeps wincing and turning his face from side to side and I wonder if I can tell the truth in this meeting about why I’m late. “You have to stop doing this, it’ll make you sick and you’re making me late.”

“You’re not taking me to school?” Kinderblogger asks.
“No Daddy is, I have a meeting but I’ll see you tonight.”

I regret my tone and my words I can see he feels bad, he made his nose bleed for goodness sake. I had time to take him before the Lego-slow-sock-nosebleed detour. Fatherblogger comes downstairs, “Are you taking him?” he asks.

“No, you just said I should go.”

“Right I just thought you wanted—”

“I have to go.”
Fatherblogger hunches his shoulders, his way of saying, okay don’t get mad I was just offering in case you thought you wanted to go.

But I’m having my own broken Lego moment: But you said you could take him, and now I’m angry. I think: I’m trying to take this extra job for us. So we can add to our downpayment by the summer, just like we talked about. So he can play outside. So we can have more room. So you can have that work room so you can leave your motherboard or loveboards or whatever the hell the computer things are you want to make, ready to be tinkered with. I know you are under a ton of pressure, I know the dry cleaner broke the buttons on your good shirt. I know you need to find five good hires this week, and I know that everyone else as washed their hands of it and its all on you and you don’t even know where to begin to ask for help. But its 8:16 and I really have to go. And even though I’m thinking all that I want to be able to say, Screw this. we don’t need a house or a yard or a work shop, I doesn’t matter if I’m late. She’ll understand. I want to say we have enough. But instead, I just say, “Ok, great. Thanks.” and I walk out. No kisses to kids or thanks to my nannyblogger who arrived in the midst of this.

“I love you,” Fatherblogger says but I don’t hear him and the door closes and he gets mad and opens the screen door stands there barefoot on the cold concrete steps, “Hey I just said I love you, don’t just walk away.”

“Ok, I’m sorry. I didn’t hear,” hoping he’ll believe or forgive my lie. “I love you too.”
I walk down half a block and I think this is my mess, this sticky sour mess is my family life and it hurts like a torn cuticle that makes it hard to use my whole hand.

So I stop and I go back in the house.

Kinderblogger’s is standing in the living room, his face is frozen in a frightened frown and I realize he can never go to school so burdened. He’s too young to have to the shake off a morning of bad feelings. I hug him, and let him nuzzle his face in my coat, blood stains be damned, we’ll find a new dry cleaner.

Fatherblogger comes out of the bathroom and says, “You’re back,” there’s a palable relief in his voice mixed with touch of pride that I realized I can’t walk away. Dramatic exits are for Lifetime, not real life. “I needed to kiss the kids goodbye.”
“And me too?” he asks.
How does he stay in a good mood, I wonder. “Yes, you too.” I notice he’s wearing a totally different outfit. 35 minutes later, I walk in the restaurant and the clock says I have seven minutes to spare.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 7th, 2008 at 10:23 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.