It's morning and my child is up before me. This is foreboding.
Coffee. Must make coffee. Quickly. Before I'm asked to wear a costume or build a tower or read a book or act in a puppet show or have a dance party.
As I pour the water into the coffee maker, I remind myself to use the plastic coffee filter contraption. Boy that was a big mess, coffee and coffee grounds everywhere. At least this morning I'm on the ball, I say as I fill the paper filter and slip it into the plastic thing.
Five minutes later, I hear my husband yelling, "Honey! You need to use a coffee pot when you make coffee!" I peek in the kitchen to see coffee covering the counter and dripping into the dishwasher that thankfully contains dirty dishes.
Pot. Right. My first accomplishment of the day puddles on the floor that I just mopped the night before.
"I didn't do it!" my son yells.
See. Everyone makes a mess, I tell my son trying to make a positive lesson out of a big stinking mess, a mess that my husband cleans because maybe he just wants to help but more likely he probably fears that I'll find a way to electrocute myself without my first morning cup of coffee which is why I now understand my mother-in-law's cup of instant coffee as she brews her morning coffee.
"I'll help you, Mommy."
I accept my son's offer to help make the second pot knowing full well that most parenting magazines, except perhaps those progressive ones that advocate old-school parenting techniques like that mom in New York City who let her 9-year old ride the subway home alone, most likely warn against letting your four-year old operate electrical appliances but "what the hell," I think, he can't do worse than I just did and anyway I stopped reading parenting magazines years ago after one featured this beautiful, famous mom who lives in the Bahamas wearing ethereal floor-length sundresses as she sends her boys to a private boarding school in London because how does that really help me be a better mom ...
... breathe ...
Morning thoughts shouldn't be so complex. Not without a cup of coffee.
