Would you believe me if I told you this is true?
Around 7:35 this morning, I asked eldest child, Ezekiel, to wake his middle two brothers, because it was late and I was making breakfasts and lunches and he, Ezekiel, was awaiting one of those breakfasts (I don’t want this to sound more elaborate than it was; it was toast, nothing fancy).
Here’s how Ezekiel reported waking the pair: “I sang to them and then I flipped the light on.” My response: Bad move (thinking, bad move on his part to wake them that way and bad move on my part to ask him to be the waker-upper).
Result after a three-day weekend? You guessed it; Remy came downstairs in a very, very grumpy mood. We could have just sat down and read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day right then and there—and headed to Australia—except we didn’t need a book to tell us how completely rotten the day was.
Lucien happily ate cinnamon raisin toast. Remy rejected toast—and every other breakfast offering: cereal, granola, yogurt, applesauce, pasta, or tortilla. Lucien gathered his homework and lunch and put those items in his backpack. Remy asked, “What did you send for lunch?” When I responded that I’d put pasta in his new thermos, he practically spat, “Pasta! I’m sick of pasta! We always eat pasta!” In a teeny-tiny trying to be placating mama voice, I added, with pesto. The front door slammed and off went Ezekiel to the carpool. Remy returned to the heart of the matter. He said, “I don’t want to go to school and I don’t like it when I’m woken up by singing and a light turned on.” Ah, yes (mental note: reprimand Ezekiel again about that later).
Upstairs, while brushing teeth, he said, “I just have to go back to bed because I’m so tired after Ezekiel woke me up like that.” I said I understood (and please know that I say I understand about one hundred times a day to Remy). I started toward the stairs, though, and Remy followed.
About ten minutes later Remy reluctantly agreed to an orange as we were trying to get to the mudroom for coats. I got us out the door, all the while fielding complaints about the “disgusting” pasta (still in the lunch sack) and having field what seemed countless rejections of any other lunch offerings, except maybe a lemon cupcake from the Woodstar café.
Meantime, it wasn’t exactly snowing; it was sleeting slush (perhaps slushing should be a verb?). The sky was heavy and grey and the sidewalk was just a tad bit slick, yet not icy. A person was less likely to slip than simply to skid.
Meantime, it was the Tuesday morning when Massachusetts was holding a special election to fill Ted Kennedy’s seat. Ted Kennedy of the Kennedy dynasty and Ted Kennedy of the health-care-reform-is-tantamount would not—if he were here—have been a happy man on this snowy morning, because the Republican (as Jon Stewart would say, Whaa?) Scott Brown had taken the lead in the polls. Martha Coakley, the perfectly competent, milquetoast Democratic nominee had run what seemed an underwhelming campaign but whatever the issue with her might be, it was a little too late for anything more than digging deep and trying to extricate a Democratic victory. In my world, the past week could be summed up as one long Vote-For-Coakley robocall (well, there was actually a series of countless robocalls) punctuated by anxious friends and family bemoaning the possibility that the seat—and health care and reproductive rights and gay and lesbian rights and, and, and—could go teabagger-funded Republican.
The whole walk to school, Remy pouted and complained about everything from snowpants being required at recess to school to the wet snow not sticking to the brother who woke him up so not-nicely. He threatened to throw a snowball in my direction, didn’t, then tossed a tiny one my way just before we reached the school’s front entrance.
Mornings like this, grumpy is a wan word for the entrenchment of Remy’s ill humor and this morning it was compounded for me by the anxiety I feel over “Teddy’s” seat. Mornings like this, I can hold all the bad things in my hand, knotted up, and knot them some more. There are always bad things to knot up, let’s face it.
The just-barely late crew tumbled down the stairs, not in a throng but certainly a small herd and so Remy and I didn’t speak between the entrance hallway and the downstairs corridor leading to his classroom. He showed me a pencil and said, “Look, I found a pencil.” He did not try to stab me with it. He did not try to break it. He looked… pleased. I asked whether he wanted me to hold onto it so he could bring it home later. He nodded yes. I loaded snowpants and their bag into the locker and handed him his homework sheet to give over to the teacher. Warmhearted Ms. Perkins with all the perfect graciousness of Kevin Henkes’ Wemberly’s teacher greeted him at the doorway with a wide smile in Wemberly Worried—and he smiled back.
Once inside and putting Remy’s lunch into his cubby, his classmate, Sam, himself sometimes fairly regularly, uh, displeased by mornings, was busily making stickers (paper made into stickers by tape) that read Vote. “Can I make you a sticker?” he asked. Remy beamed looking on before he meandered elsewhere and Sam proudly made me a sticker and I was—despite my well-founded fears and well-founded grumpiness-sponging fatigue—smiling.
Not that the polls improved—the news leading into Election Day was dismal—but Sam reminded me that voting is a privilege, something I deeply appreciate having the opportunity to do. I slip-slid-trudged home. The sleet turned to snow as the morning wore on, and I gazed at it through the window, momentarily suspending disbelief and letting the large, lacy flakes look like hope.
Oh, and by the way, vote.
