Something

These past few days I’ve been managing things sans my husband. He used to travel for work often in a month. It was part of normal. Then Covid…and let’s just say, life shifted.

But he took off on Monday for the first time since an early December trip and the boys and I attempted to rock and roll without the husband.

Normally, life is smooth. The boys will pick and choose who “can’t sleep” and join me so I’m not lonely. It’s sweet and lovely.

This time around – there were bumps. -Rocks thrown at us, huge potholes along the road – literally and figuratively.

Tonight we were still scrambling. After all, like many people, we had adjusted to the new normal. I knew how to manage things with my partner involved. We had it down to an exact science.

Surviving. That’s how it felt. Getting by. Until, I took a moment.

Driving the middle and younger to gymnastics class for the middle child after dropping the oldest off at Tae Kwon Do, I could feel the heat rise in my face again.

“Mom, I hate being late!” the middle said.

I was about to get haughty. I was about to spew all the things I had done for him and for his brothers and for their school today. But I had done haughty. Haughty annoyed me and didn’t further anything between my son and I. What I missed over our hurrying and rushing and scrambling was my favorite part of parenting – teaching, playing.

“Red light,” I said.

We had arrived at yet another frustrating obstacle and I wanted to teach my boys that we can be frustrated or we can manage to find joy even in our lateness. Our scramble.

“Red light is a stop, an end.”

And I rattled off another line to wrap it up into a poem.

Then I said another poem, off the cuff, about green light.

My middle jumped in with his own short poem and I responded by snapping my fingers and telling the boys this is how they applaud in the poetic world.

The youngest threw out his own poem and laughed at the end of it. The middle snapped his fingers to celebrate.

We arrived, finally, and we were late. But the middle and the youngest rushed in to the building with smiles in their faces and fingers snapping.

It doesn’t always have to be a battle, a scramble, a hole we fall into. We just have to find the moments along the way.