I woke up ten minutes late today. Perhaps the day would have had a different trajectory had I woken up at 6:50, but I woke up at 7. It's not really worth wondering though, is it? Normally Josh, bless him, wakes up at 6:30. He gets the big boys their juice, tells them to put clothes on, hops in the shower, and then fifteen minutes later wakes me up. With a gentle reminder that I might want to be downstairs in ten to get lunches going, etcetera, he leaves the room and closes the door. For the next ten minutes I am wrapped in the blissful cocoon of cool sheets, with sunlight waking up the room around me as I listen to the sounds of three children and their daddy starting a new day. I settle my eyes back to sleep, and often catch a few more winks before I stretch myself out of bed and plod downstairs. I groggily put pepperoni on bread, fill baggies with Goldfish, and hug a chubby baby face. I answer the questions about what we're going to do today, later today, after nap, before nap, and for some reason all these questions require different answers. I walk around the kitchen in bare feet, slowly, and sip black steaming coffee from my Anthropologie mug. I hug Jonathan goodbye, watch William jump from the stairs into his older brother's arms for his farewell, and then I close the door and continue to sip my black coffee with only half opened eyelids.
Today, however, I woke up ten minutes late. I jumped out of my bed and plodded downstairs. I made two lunches because we have a friend staying with us, answered (for some reason) many more questions from my three year old, and then jumped in the car myself, with my half drunk coffee, William, Sam, and our buddy so that I could take him to his kindergarten while Josh trekked across town with Jonathan. Only it didn't go slowly, smoothly, or sweetly. As I was rushing out the door with no shoes on, I noticed Jonathan was lingering at the door. Crying. Well, almost crying- his eyes were looking watery and his chin was looking like a cooked spaghetti noodle.
"I don't want to go to kindergarten, mom, because I don't want to leave you."
Pause.
The craziness of the day, my sporadic wakeup and my half drunk coffee vanished. Like the dance scene in Pride and Prejudice, it was just him and me. We stood there in a desert by the back door and there was no other noise, just the sound of his softly pleading will and the sound of my heart being twisted, small capillaries of cracks forming there like veins on leaves.
Forty five minutes later I called Josh. The situation had not improved. With Charles having happily bounced off to school, Sam giggling in the backseat, and William still asking me what our plan for the day held, I wracked my brain for what to do. LORD, I need you now. Jonathan needs you, I need you, we need you.
Obviously, I called my mom. She suggested I go have lunch with him, validate his fears, take him a Lego guy to stick in his pocket and remind him that he is brave. So I did, because I wanted to and I didn't know what else to do.
Sam's giggling turned to protest as his time in the car lengthened. William's questions turned into tears, and still my mind stayed on Jonathan like a hound on a fox. The noise around me wasn't soothing, it wasn't distracting. It was grating and it was life, but it was like a hill beneath a runner's feet: it just had to be, because this was the moment I had been training for. Sam cries because he needs to for survival, evolutionarily he is a leader of the pack. Will cries because, well, I think because he is three, and three-year-olds have some innate need to get their life's quota of whining out of their system. However, Jonathan cries only in extreme pain or angst. Ever since I sent him off to school that morning I had been feeling like a fireman on the firepole or a runner at the start of a race.
Arriving at his school my stomach was twisted, not in fear necessarily, but because this was the race we had been training for. For one of the first times I could not fix it for him, I could only stand on the sidelines as his coach. We ate lunch together, he smiled, I met his friends, and then it was time for him to be the line leader. Outside the bathroom Jonathan, his buddy Speirs, and I prayed for the day. We tucked his lion lego in his pocket and I left.
I didn't look back.
In the car I prayed, took a deep breath, and drove back to my baby to pick up the day where it had been left off.
And Jonathan ran his race.
It's hard being a mom. It's hard letting go, watching the gates fling open, watching them kick up dust and sometimes get nicked in the heels. I hope the metaphor doesn't offend, but it's like raising a racehorse from a colt. They nuzzle your hand with their soft nose, and you feed them apples with a smile in the corner of your mouth. You bathe and train them, working long hours and sweating plenty. You watch their muscles grow and refine, watch their coats go from fuzzy soft fur to gleaming garbs of velvet. Then it's time to hire a jockey, and sit in the stands.
