by Cathy
If you read this blog enough (which I hope you do!) you know that my family, we of Greek and Latin descent, are always running late. Part of it is innate due to stereotypical tardy traits within our cultures and the rest is, well, we tend to be a little slow.
Since this tardiness would be expected in our respective countries, it's not very well accepted here by my kids' school, and with very good reason. Despite what is accepted elsewhere, we need to be respectful of peoples' schedules and time in general. It's a horrible habit to fall into and extremely difficult to break once in the cycle - a cycle which I must say I was drawn into by my husband after we got married. No matter how ready and on time you are, if the person you are with is late, you are BOTH late and your efforts are for crap.
That said, I have declared a sense of urgency in our house in the mornings. I gave my kids a specific time to be in the kitchen for breakfast; I explained that they had to work backwards from there to determine how much time they need to lollygag, get dressed, fight over hair accessories, put on earrings, find matching socks, pack their bags, make their beds, and set their alarm accordingly, which, by the way, includes two nine-minutes snooze sessions built in to make it feel as though they "got more sleep".
We did well for a few days until yesterday morning. We ALL had to be out of the house at the same time, (which normally doesn't happen) so my husband and I had to get ready while the girls went on with their schedules without being reminded a bajillion times to watch the clock or go eat breakfast and "What time is it, girls??!!" Naturally, we ended up leaving the house later than our newly appointed non-late time deadline so it was a race to get to school before they closed those doors.
Needless to say, I was upset. And grumpy. And annoyed. And just plain frustrated. Therefore, I was short-tempered with everyone in the car while I imagined the tsk-tsk, shaking-my-head looks my kids would be receiving by their teachers. Adding to my mood was the fact that traffic was extraordinarily backed-up and we encountered a garbage truck inching its way in front of us down the side street we took, only to put on its flashers, pop into reverse and BEEP BEEP BEEP its backside into an alley with more three-point turns than an ice skating routine.
Right when I thought I was going to jump out of the car and run my kids to school on piggyback, I heard the laughter of the girls in the back seat as they volleyed a pink balloon that was found in the car. Ari started reciting lines from Despicable Me (one of the girls' favorite movies) in Gru's Russian accent and Bella joined in. They were actually pretty funny and as they went on, the act got funnier as the accents got stronger and more animated.
Suddenly, I found myself laughing. Laughing at how goofy my daughters can be; laughing because of course we have the world's slowest garbage truck driven by a first-timer in front of us on the way to school; laughing that we have blown-up balloons sitting in our car willy-nilly; laughing that said balloon lurched forward into the windshield, floating around in our faces as we screeched up to the school door yet again and the girls scurried out, yelling their goodbyes through the open door; laughing at the funny irony of it all.
I let go of the anger and the frustration and what I could not control in that moment and just went with the flow. It reminded me of that scene in Parenthood (one of MY favorite movies and a must-see for all parents) when Steve Martin allows himself to get whisked away in the thrill of going with life's flow - like being on a roller coaster, after grandma tells him:
"You know, when I was nineteen, Grandpa took me on a roller coaster. Up, down, up, down. Oh, what a ride! I always wanted to go again. You know, it was just so interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together! Some didn't like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing. I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it."
Closing your eyes and fighting it isn't as much fun as throwing your hands up in the air and enjoying the ride.
