An Unexpected Gift
This morning, after kids’ drop offs, I climbed right back into bed, fully clothed, pulled the covers up to my chin and watched The Today Show.
Nice, huh? Think I do this sort of thing every day?
This morning I woke up at 5am and couldn’t get back to sleep. I must have dozed off because I jumped out of bed in a panic at 6:36 to get the three kids up and out by 7:15. This includes having one of them take a shower, dressing another and feeding them all breakfast. Oh and not allowing the girls to go to school with rats nests in their hair. Forget about brushing teeth, we rarely manage that on Tuesday mornings.
Why the mad rush? On Tuesdays I have to drop the youngest at my sister-in-law’s, drop the middle one at her school and then drive my son’s carpool to his school about 25 minutes away. The whole ordeal takes 1 1/2 hours from start to finish. Then I had a 9am business meeting in a neighboring town.
So, I was frazzled, hungry and had not had time for coffee. (I did brush my teeth, though.)
But lo and behold, I was suddenly blessed with an unexpected gift: another carpool parent offered to drive the kids… it’s on his way… he doesn’t mind… it took me a nanosecond to say, sure, take ‘em!
On my way out of the parking lot, unable to believe my luck, I weighed my options:
- Go to my sister-in-law’s and hang out for half an hour with her, then take Svenja to the bus stop (Meave usually does that for me on Tuesdays–thank God for family)
- Go home and do some work before leaving for my meeting. I could pitch a few more people for this book, work a bit more on my other book, write some e-mails, blog… I could get ahead (so to speak)
- Finish the laundry. I have two loads–one ready to fold and one ready to dry. Oh, and another pile gathered already, since YESTERDAY, to throw in the wash.
- Make a pot of coffee and sit in the kitchen savoring the Arts section of the New York Times.
And then I thought: what the hell, how long has it been since I’ve lounged in bed watching the Today Show?! Not since GRADUATE SCHOOL 15 years ago.
On my way to my 9 am meeting, that old song came on, “Taking Care of Business.” I turned the volume up and sang along. The unexpected gift of just a little time to indulge myself suddenly made the day seem full of potential.