bad waffle mornings and all

I need to write more often. I need to write more often. I need to write more often.

Or maybe i'm just not a writer after all.

But I have to be. Because my master plan is to save myself from all this stuckness by selling something wonderful to the world so i can go ahead and move into my own fairy cottage with my own clean floors and my own clean bathroom and a guest room or two for my kids.

Here is something that moved me recently: my youngest daughter was having a meltdown over some waffle-without-enough-syrup tragedy that had taken place in my kitchen before she ran upstairs to where I was trying to force myself into grown-up work clothes which generally repel me. This began about ten minutes before her bus was to arrive, and included a sobbing girl with wet hair from the shower we had finally insisted she take (she prefers crusty skin and crumply hair even under her princess crown) which was soaking her shirt down the shoulders toward her sleeves. She was sobbing and insisting nobody listens to her and that daddy promised he'd get her more syrup but then he ANSWERED THE DOOR AND IS STILL TALKING TO THE AIR CONDITIONER GUY AND HE DOESN"T EVEN CARE ABOUT ME ANYMORE AND NOBODY LISTENS TO ME. And I had to start brushing and blowdrying her hair and her shirt over the commotion, risking the bus pulling up before the waffles were inserted into her sobbing cheeks with or without syrup and realizing this was one tragedy i just didn't have the energy or the time to make all better. She was having a bad morning. It was more than the naked waffles, but i had no time to dig deeper. These happen more days than not, and in my next life i will fix mornings. I will be a morning repairman. The world needs morning repairpeople more than airconditioning guys anyway. But I digress.

Abby was bawling and I was blowdrying and telling her she needed to pull it together and I watched her secretly try this thing I had mentioned to her a few weeks ago in passing: I'd told her that I learned if you force a smile onto your mouth even if you're really really mad then some endorphins get released in your body and you actually accidently start to feel a little better. And I caught her trying this out (which she NEVER would have admitted). Tears were shooting out of her eyeballs at an alarming speed, while she covered her mouth and nose with her hands. She didn't know I could see the indentations of her dimples on either side of her hands. She was force-smiling behind her hands and trying not to let me know she was doing it. it was a strange sight: tears from angry eyes and dimples at the same time. kind of like when it rains while the sun is shining. which sort of explains abby in a nutshell now that i think of it.

I don't know why this made me so heartachingly happy and sad at the same time, but it did. To see my daughter trying out something that I had told her might make a person feel better. she must have believed me, she tested my hypothesis and it worked for her. i'm one notch farther away from totally annoying mom with the blah blah blah. she got on the bus, syrupless waffle in hand, and smiling in her dry clean hair.

It was like I had gotten some sort of sign that things were going to be ok out there in the world with me and this one with all the drama. she listened. she actually put my words of wisdom to use--of course without ever admitting it, and I'll never never let her know I saw it go down--but i got some sort of sense that everything's going to be fine, bad waffle mornings and all.

maybe i'm not doing such a bad job pretending to be the grown up in this family afterall.