Before Coffee

Unloading the dishwasher is a chore that seldom falls to me, but this morning it did - only because the assigned unloader is going from one activity to the next after school and won't be home until ten o'clock tonight and we can't wait that long between dishwasher runs -and the entertainment was coming from all parts of the house.

In our family we have dueling attention seekers -a boy and a girl; sometimes one pulls way out in front which spurs the other toward bigger and greater methods. Here's the way it played out this morning...

In the dining room area - and not visible to me - daughter was sitting, working quietly on quizzing homework. At the same time, in (what we call) the library area son was playing on the Leapster making very loud noises and comments. He was also not visible to me or daughter number two (who was with me in the kitchen having issues all her own), but he had positioned himself at just the right angle to be seen - and more importantly - heard by his opposition.

It took but a few minutes for daughter to begin a song of few words and little melody, initially very soft, but then for maximum effect, growing in volume. The same four or five words were 'sung' over and over in an effort to drown out the sound effects of her brother. From the library we soon we heard, "Oh man, what a great score!" and, "Wow! Can you believe it?!" and other such exclamations - of course receiving no attention - escalating to drown out the sing-songing of his sister. She did her best to not really ignore, but rather make a show of letting him know she wanted to ignore him; while at the same time calling for me to come and check the work she had done.

Mercifully, it was time to collect our stuff and ourselves and walk to the bus stop. Daughter secured a spot beside me and dove into a diatribe about a book she had put on hold at the library: what the book is about, why she had to put it on hold, who else in her class had signed the book out, what I would say when she showed me the book... and each time she took a breath, brother was right there ready to take over. His was a discussion on what snakes he had seen at the zoo, the size and color of them, where they were located, how large the cases were, what he saw before and after the snakes.

Once the bus had come and gone, I enjoyed a quiet walk back to the house where I savored a mug of coffee, thankful for the energy of my kids and even more thankful that I had put off that coffee - and being fully alert and awake - until the attention seekers had gone.