Sunday mornings can be aggravating. That’s when my brain starts juggling, filtering, and amalgamating ideas about this here blog, despite appearances to the contrary: I scroll through Facebook and Twitter, check e-mail, and read articles in various places online and on paper, rummaging for inspiration. None of this makes me appear to be “working,” although working is what I lay claim to. The brain revs up, stalls several times, and eventually begins to whir. It’s resistant, though, to anyone else’s demands.
The hub-sand tends to sleep late, which I don’t begrudge him… that is, until it starts heading on 10 am or so. Then begrudgement (is that a word?) creeps in and frustration begins to build, particularly as the little guy hovers, asking when the Peabody Museum will be open and when it will be noon and how long is it until the afternoon now, or wanting me to take on the role of a Harry Potter character in a scenario in which Ewoks come to Hogwarts.
“What does Hermione say when Wicket and Cricket” (the Ewoks) “shoot a Death Eater from a launcher?” he wants to know. And ordinarily I’d come up with something incredibly witty and inventive in response (“Wow!”) but when I’m trying to focus on other things, Hermione and her ways elude me.
“Can you tell Papa that it’s almost 10 o’clock and Mama says he should get up?”
The little guy tromps upstairs, comes down again, tells me Papa was already awake, and then shoves a piece of construction paper in my face that has the letters “T” and “V” scribbled on it.
“No. You watched Star Wars last night and were up late.”
“Aw, maaaaaaan!”
What are all these mounds of toys for, I want to know, if not to play with?
On Sundays, mornings progress far more swiftly into afternoons than on other days of the week. Time management is far trickier. All the things we vow to accomplish battle fiercely with our entitled Sunday feelings about me-time, leisurely breakfasts, self-refilling cups of hot caffeinated beverages, and humorous public radio programs. In the meantime, piles of laundry, child-generated messes, and dirty dishes beget more of the same: they all redouble their efforts today because they know we won’t have time to redouble ours once The Week begins.
Sunday is a blessing and a curse.
Once the boys have left and silence tingles my ears I find my own distractions. The drip of the kitchen sink, the tick of a clock somewhere, the whoosh of a passing car. On Sundays I pursue a perfect cup of tea that too often evades me, either by sitting out too long or not steeping long enough before I pour the milk in. On Sundays I have plenty of time to get it just right before I take a few sips, abandon it, and begin again.
Sometimes I find myself wondering. About what I thought about all week; what irked or pleased or tickled me; what crazy, spontaneous, wonderful thing my child said that set me giggling. Sometimes I weigh my worries and dismiss or pocket them for later.
On Sundays my eyes are drawn to all the things that need picking up: the sofa cushions a munchkin has thrown to the floor; the pots, pans, and wooden spoon on the yoga mat; the art supplies on the dining room table. The newspaper must be read, the ukelele played, the decodable books decoded. How much will I manage to make happen before the white-grey sky darkens and the lush, leafy trees take on the appearance of shadows? Is there a universal time of day when we all let go of those last hopes for Sunday?
Photo © Valeriy Evlakhov | Dreamstime.com
Today, Jonah has been drawing endlessly and hasn’t paid a whole lot of obvious attention to the music, but I’ve been in my groove. After all, how on earth is it possible to be unhappy while listening to “Tired of Waiting for You” by The Kinks? Whose heart doesn’t soar along with “Eight Miles High” by Jefferson Airplane?
It took him a bit to make his way over and, when he did, we had that conversation, the one you’re supposed to have in these situations, the one that starts, “Haven’t we talked about not using those words in public? That dad was very upset. We’ve discussed this many times, Jonah.”
I was incredibly proud when Jonah bounded up on stage with no extra prompting and began to play. There were a hundred people watching, at least, so getting up there, in itself, took guts. And he did an incredible job, prompting a few people afterwards to say, “Are you the kid who did that dance on stage? Wow! Very impressive!”
Yeah well, anyway, last spring, when I asked Jonah if he wanted to try out soccer, this was his unequivocal reply: “No thanks.”
There was no free time. No run-around-and-make-up-your-own-game time or “Here are arts supplies. Go to town” time. And he hated the daily swim lessons. To this day, he refuses to learn to swim.
“It’s like that man who went into the school and killed those kids,” my son said, and my heart nearly stopped. Yes, it was. It was far too much like that. Far too soon after that. And far too close to home.
And I haven’t mentioned the state of his room. Or the den.
This morning, while he was pretending to be a Hogwarts student changing beetles into firewood, I asked him to finish the job I’d started: putting his pastel crayons into their box. He grumbled but took the box from me, unearthed a cache of pastels, and began putting them away… until he decided to use them instead to make a picture.
He walked to the bookcase, sat on the floor in front of it, and pulled a book into his lap. “I only like to clean up one thing at a time.”
I’m sure it is sometimes difficult for him, having no siblings or cousins his own age. He is sometimes fairly isolated and lonely. There are no kids his age in our neighborhood (one of the many reasons we are moving), and getting together with friends takes planning, so it doesn’t happen as often as it should. I do wish he could spend a weekend being doted on by his grandparents; I wish his Grandma and Grandpa were able to take him somewhere special for a day. I wish all sorts of things for him, but wishing won’t make them so.