Normally I really look forward to Friday mornings. Friday is my day. Matt does the kids' school routine so I can get up early and go for a run then get to work fresh and energised, ready to spill my heart into a google doc that will become the Bulletin Board of the week.
You may recall a few weeks ago I wrote about stepping aside from the floor at TinyOffice so I could re-channel that energy into supporting Matt (basically let him do his job) and focusing on the kids so he didn’t have to. This is a temporary measure while a particularly large project is underway and this morning is what that ‘support’ in action looks like.
Matt was out of the door at 5.30am which meant my empowering run, which is normally in sync with the sunrise on a glorious clear morning was replaced with a 30 minute yoga video on the lounge floor in which Alice continually interrupted by trying to tunnel under my ‘downward facing dog’.
Going to work super early and sitting at my desk with a fresh cup of Melbourne Breakfast tea, ready to write something insightful and meaningful was replaced with the following…
Making two school lunches, which is tough on a Friday when you're down to the last mandarin and there’s only enough salami left for one kid's sandwich. Doing Frank's sight words homework while trying to brush his hair at the same time. Getting Alice's hair into a ponytail while she wiggles around and plays a keyboard. Making sure that everyone is in the right clothes, lunch boxes are packed, shoes are on, bedrooms are kind of clean, hang out the load of wash that I put on at 5.30am this morning (which by the way had a bloody tissue strewn throughout it - one of life's most disappointing moments - a load of washing that will have to be redone!) make sure I have some food for the day, lights off, house and car keys in my pocket then the final catastrophe.
There is ALWAYS a final catastrophe.
Something that happens just as you're about to walk out of the door. It used to be a nappy explosion when the kids were little and now it could be anything. This morning it was the kids fighting over a microphone stand of all things. ‘Something’ happened and Frank’s palm got (quite badly) pinched in one of the connections. We were meant to be out the door 5 minutes ago and I’m now screaming at the kids for fighting over the stand, Frank’s screaming at me that his hands hurts and Alice is screaming ‘it was an accident’!
It takes a good 5 minutes to calm everyone down - Alice has apologised to Frank for doing whatever she did that caused the pinching. I’ve put the Mic stand out of harm's way and done some deep breathing to calm myself and Frank has a blood blister the size of a 5 cent piece on his palm and is still whimpering slightly.
Alice was fashionably late to Kinda, Frank saw his friend walking to school so I dropped him off and he proudly showed off his blood blister then quickly forgot all about it and I have finally arrived at the office. There is no Melbourne Breakfast at work so I’ve made do with a Queen Victoria peppermint tea instead. Not my number one, but it will do.
My meditative, quite spiritual Friday morning routine of writing and deep thought hasn’t panned out as I’d hoped. I wanted to write about this great line I read in ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ by Dale Carnegie… “The ability to speak is a shortcut to distinction” but alas, moaning about a tissue is the god damn washing (it was a dark load as well) has taken president.
This is what support for each other in my family looks like. Helping each other out even if it's giving up something you really, REALLY want to do so the other person can succeed. The last couple of weeks Matt has been in overdrive and giving him space to focus on work and not so much on the family is the only way we can move forward.
Life is not this all the time but I can hands down, 100% confirm that getting kids ready for the day is by far the most stressful part of it! How anyone can come to work afterward and expect to have a fully productive day is astounding. The upside of this chaotic start to the day is how good that cup of Queen Victoria Peppermint tea is - it may not be my number one but sitting still in front of my computer with a hot cup of tea resting in between my hands is as close to a spiritual moment I’ll probably get today. And I’ll take it.
