So, a week of attempts may look like this:
Monday - 6:30 a.m. - I am heading to the shower when a head appears ominously around my doorway. "Mother," it croaks, eyes wide, skin pale, "I forgot my essay is due this morning." And then, since I have been on that end of things many times in my life, I come to his aid, and together we finish the essay an hour and a half later. Morning routine . . . up in smoke.
Tuesday - 7:00 a.m. - Just cracking open my morning devotional. From up on the catwalk a sad snuffling, coughing, and wheezing. "Mama," says the snuffling and wheezing little being, "I'm sick. Can you come lay down with me??" And then, because this is the baby and there will be precious few times where I'm so desired to make it through the beginnings of a nasty cold, I cuddle up. Morning routine . . . drifts off into the ether.
Wednesday - 6:45 a.m. - A holler is heard from the kitchen area where the Man of the House is making his way to the kitchen, via the area where the dogs sleep. They have done it again. Having apparently missed their perfect schedule by 1 or 2 minutes, now where there were only glossy, empty hardwoods, there are glossy hardwoods with foul-smelling piles and at least one medium-sized lake. The next half hour is then spent, wiping, spraying, bagging and shampooing, with a little time added in for repeated gagging. Just saying. Morning routine . . . sadly hijacked.
Thursday - 7:30 a.m. - With a large stretch, I sit before my computer to address the large stack of e-mails coming in on the sports web site. Rapid footsteps staccato down the hall and the door flings open. "Are you ready, Mom??" ::gulp:: My fuzzy pajamas and suede, fur-lined slippers already give the answer. "Well, don't forget that my car is in the shop and Middle Son has to have the other car for math lessons and Dad already left for work and Oldest Daughter is away at college, leaving only you to take me to school!!!!!" ::ugh:: So, I pull on a pair of boots long enough to cover the bottom of my fluffy pajamas and a black coat long enough to cover the top of my fluffy pajamas and off we zoom to school. And between morning traffic and car lines, my morning routine has evaporated.
I'll spare you any more painful citings of morning routines sadly gone awry. Suffice it to say that best intentions still remain best intentions. EXCEPT, for the one routine that has come to stay. The morning walk.
The walk from where these pictures came, where I can discover plants still alive in winter, bird nests lonely from last spring's abandonment, and the first of the tiny narcissus. Where the river birch bark peels off in thick, curling chunks and the sun's rays burst through the clouds and touch the neighborhood's small lake.
Getting up at 6:00 a.m. has assured me that this routine will remain un-threatened. It's a full half hour before the first stirrings of the earliest awakening members of the house.
And the only sure way to remain untouched by the needs, grievances and distractions of those I love to serve. This one small success gives me hope that in time more routines will join the routine of the morning walk.
And in the meantime, "Yes, I'll make 2 dozen cookies for your class's St. Patrick's Day celebration. I wouldn't have it any other way."
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