With Rice Stuck to my Butt...


She woke up happy this morning, I should have known I’d have wet sheets; why else would she be up so early?  As she stood there dancing around, chirping like an early morning bird, I gathered wet bedding happy for the joy in her voice.  The more I dug at the sheets, the more I realized the severity of the watering.  As she turned around I saw the dark outline reaching up to her middle back; “crap” I muttered out loud.  I knew the battle I was in for – a wet sweatshirt, vest, camisole and jeans meant this morning would turn into an epic battle.

I struggled to get her to surrender the ever-present denim vest and hooded sweatshirt, peeling them off with her fighting with every ounce of resistance she could offer.  Pulling that sweatshirt off in her mind is like flaying skin and sometimes I wonder if it hasn’t been on so long that it’s actually attached to her.

I managed to get them all off and summarily marched her to the shower.  Once in, I have 120 seconds in which I can do anything I please.  Drink coffee, read a book, make breakfast.  120 seconds that’s also shared by the need to get her scrubbed, get her new clothes ready for the reassembly process.  Reassembling the front end of a Volkswagen is far easier than dressing this little livewire.

We went through numerous camisoles before she found one that was acceptable, the jeans went easy, and the denim vest however, was a deal breaker.  No power on earth was going to get her to wear a substitute, in fact had my wife not prepared rice for breakfast I’d likely still be fighting with her on that topic.  She settled at the table, minus the favorite vest and sweatshirt although not without making one feeble pull on the washer door and punch at the colored buttons on the control panel.  They offered her no support either so she moved on to breakfast without too much drama.

The bus rumbles down the driveway early.  With Bethany, three minutes on either side of “expected” clearly constitutes early or late, with its rumble comes the fear that they’ll not wait long enough for me to get her harnessed and out the door and I begin to panic.  She’s not cooperating and fully expects the washer to produce a dry vest and sweatshirt. 

For parents with kids who exhibit obsessive/compulsive tendencies, this is a familiar pattern.  A seemingly insignificant change in routine, pattern, expectation, sets off a firestorm of wild behavior.  I did my best to peaceably cope with it but the fear of missing the bus and having to cart her 40 minutes in the “wrong” direction was not appealing so I put the full court press on her.  I grabbed the four-point harness that she wears on the bus and quickly lassoed her with it.  I zipped the back of it up and proceeded to use the excess webbing as a carrying handle.  I stuffed the secondary hooded sweatshirt and vest in to her day bag and directed her out the door.

I felt like Karl Walenda on the high wire, taking her out to the bus without a sweatshirt I felt fearful, liberated, daring, like I was passing a long line of cars on a narrow road.  Adrenaline rushed in my heart at the thought of putting her on the bus “freestyle”.  She stomped her way to the door and bolted up the stairs intent on punching the first human she encountered.  The bus attendant could see the steaming fury coming at her and backed out of the way, I simply offered to guide her to her seat in the back.  Back seat, surrounded by crash pads – that’s my daughter. 

I’m not a person that “throws things over the fence” for others to deal with.  Even when re-roofing houses I rarely ever shingle over an existing roof – that just means someone else will have to take off two layers.  On this occasion, Putting her in that seat and heading towards the front of the bus was the emotional equivalent of putting on a third layer of shingles – its just not right, against code, and nearly unethical.  I did the best I could; I quietly prayed that she’d have a good day in spite of the rough beginning.

Nearly every day is like this and in an odd way, it separates us from the “normal” worries of the world.  One day I’ll likely worry about the clothes I wear to work, whether or not I have her breakfast rice stuck to my butt or drool on my sleeve.  One day the screams of other students on her bus, their conditions and my joy at greeting them in their own little languages (no Chad – no party today; no Robert, you’re not going to church; Mia, you have the most beautiful smile behind that paper mask).  One day that will all seem distant to me, I pray when that day comes that I still love the thought of and cherish the lesson from having breakfast rice stuck to my butt.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I Watched a Loved One Die Today

I watched a loved one die today. It was nothing like in the movies, nothing like what I’ve read in novels.   It was neither glorious nor peaceful, exciting nor frightening, there was no opening of the heavens, loud voices or gaseous paranormal activity.   It was in fact, nothing.   She was there one moment and gone the next.   She went from a wonderful mother and dear friend to a stiff and lifeless form that had little visible resemblance to the person I’d known all these years. When I arrived, I could see her struggling for breath through a dark hole surrounded by taught, grey cheekbones and my first thought was “good thing I didn’t stop and get gas in the car first” .   The tragedy in that thought, as shallow as it is, lies in the fact that had I stopped, She’d have been gone before I keyed the debit number into the pump.   Trading gas for life – that’s how bizarre this all is. As I approached the bedside, I could only feel pain for m...
Read more

Balance Within a Balance - Fik vs. Calder

People keep talking about balancing work and home life as if were actually even a possibility.  I'm finding in my world, that balance looks more like an Alexander Calder mobile that didn't quite past muster. It hangs askew from the ceiling with a limp and peculiar air about it and I'm not sure if its pathetic for its planning or its execution, in either case - the vision before me is anything but glorious. There's not simply the question of two opposing forces balancing; in fact, the deadly component no one mentions are the dozens of little balancing acts within each topic.  Balancing the politics at work with the actual need to get something accomplished.  Balancing what gets accomplished and who looks to gain what, from it..well, you get the drift; balancing within a balance.  Watching Bethany get off the school bus the other day, I was suddenly overcome with a glimpse of all the poorly balanced items in my life.  For the eternity of one minute, I was full...
Read more

Being Fed With Stone Soup

The quiet surgeon went on to explain how his life had gone from being the doctor to being the patient in a span of about 60 minutes.   One moment he’s a surgeon doing what he believed God had designed him to do, the next moment he’s looking at his own x-rays which reveal that he’s now a cancer victim with less than 3 years life expectancy.   Somehow, at the end of all this he was able to say “I thank God for the cancer”.   From that sobering testimony, the pastor turned to face a tent full of individuals who have their own sobering realities stuffed into bodies that are “imperfect” by conventional standards.   He was able to face them and with words that defy logic, speak how each developmental difference was in fact more special than different, more a gift than a curse.   That one set me back a bit.   The tent was alive with human movement but little of it would be welcomed as special in most of the world.   Jesus’s absurd metaphor came to mind,...
Read more