Quiet

I've always wondered how three otherwise very intelligent kids could be completely oblivious to cues in my word choice, tone and posture that would suggest we might possibly (ha!) be in a little bit of a hurry.  The whole sense-of-urgency thing is invariably lost in translation.  So, on school mornings I often find myself saying things like,  "The bus will be here in five minutes!  Go put on your shoes and coat!" and being met with blank faces, dawdling, news of missing mittens, or worse, "But Mom, I'm not done with this game on my DS yet!"  Growl.  Today was their first day back to school in two weeks, and so there was even more rust than usual on the morning gears, but they did all manage to get onto the bus without me having to lose my gourd at anyone: that never bodes well for the rest of the day.

With them gone (and Himself gone from the crack of dawn, as is his habit) the house was very, very quiet.  The freezing, pouring rain outside took away any desire I had to be productive: I sat down at the computer and contemplated the effort that would be required to go upstairs, get dressed, and start dealing with the Christmas decorations, my major task for the day.  Then I had another cup of coffee instead.

For all the craziness that marked our holiday, all went well.  A good Christmas, safe travels to and from the West Coast, and wonderful visit with family in between.  For all my stress and worry about not being able to get everything done, everything did in fact get done, albeit at significant cost to my nervous system in the form of excess caffeine.  It's over, January is now upon us, and "normal" life as we know it has finally returned.  I've had this song in my head all day:

Time to hibernate from the vicious cold, rest and regroup!