Saturday, January 23, 2016

Saturday morning ponderings

Saturday mornings are made for pondering, I am completely convinced.

Reflections back on the week that has passed, wonderings about the week looming in front, quiet, peaceful, philosophical pondering that can only be enjoyed on the one day a week when nothing, or almost nothing, is required of a person: THAT is why God gave us Saturday morning.

My pondering never takes the same route twice. Every Saturday morning is greeted with a different collection of thoughts and questions and decisions and quandaries. This is largely due to the fact that my weeks are never the same, and one must spend time reflecting on the week just past...or else one isn't appropriately using the Saturday morning...

Lest you have begun to worry that this will be a flowery, poetic, filled-with-too-many-large-words kind of Saturday morning blog post...fear not. The topic that has occupied most of my coffee sipping, fire-gazing moments this morning is simple.

It isn't only one topic, per-say, but a collection of topics with the very same starting point. Rather than tell you the punchline, however, I must take you on the journey, because otherwise I wouldn't be making appropriate use of my gift...(the gift of way too many words...yes, I consider this a gift. Please don't ask my husband whether or not he agrees with me. Or, if you do ask him, don't tell me his answer...never mind, I already know how he feels about it.) (You see what I just did there? I had a moment of pondering which resulted in a conclusion...ah,  the beauty of Saturday morning...)

Why does the cat insist on being fed the moment he sees the light going on in the kitchen? Honest to God...I don't get but five seconds to begin perking the coffee before he is freaking out about his breakfast. Irritation knows no bounds.

How in the world am I expected to survive the hormones of a teenage girl? I swear, the abundance of laundry that needs to be folded cannot possibly be a reason for a girl to lay down in the floor and burst into tears...right?

Laundry. There's a subject on which one must spend time pondering. How in the world can six people produce so much of it? Why does it seem so dangerous to reach, bare-handed, into the basket retrieved from the boy's bathroom? WHAT IS THAT SMELL? Where the heck are all the extra socks? It boggles the mind, the quandary of laundry. (I just giggled at my own corniness.)

This leads to the next topic: Boys, in general. No matter how much I search, I cannot discover what the odor is, or where it is coming from, in any of the boys' rooms. I have finally determined that it's in the walls. Somehow, the scent that is BOY is uniquely engineered to be absorbed into porous surfaces...and to never, ever, come out.

And further on the boy topic; WHY IN GOD'S NAME can't they aim? How is it that they possess the ability to pee standing up, but lack the genes to make that pee go where it's supposed to? Every single Friday I ask this question, as I am cleaning toilets...and every single Saturday, I arrive at the same conclusion: Boys were given the inability to aim...by God...in order to test and grow the patience of their mothers. I am completely convinced of it.

Does the sentence "Don't ask me again!" somehow get lost in translation as it passes from a mom's lips to a child's ears? When it reaches the brain of a child, do they, in fact, hear "If you add a whining tone and the word 'please' as you repeat the exact same question, your mother will change her answer." The evidence would suggest that is precisely what happens.

What is the law of the universe that insists a recently swept, vacuumed, and mopped surface is in need of crumbs and sticky drinks spilled on it?

How can the tiny humans never remember your instructions to...put on deodorant, change underwear, brush their teeth, flush the toilet, wash their hands, load their dishes in the dishwasher, FEED THE CAT, chew with their mouths closed, don't pick their noses and eat their boogers, never junk punch people, say 'yes ma'am' and 'yes sir' ...but when you slam your finger in a door, they remember exactly what you said, and how you said it, and they repeat it at every opportunity?

My children occupy my pondering this morning.

They make me laugh every day. AND they make my blood pressure skyrocket.

I receive an unexpected hug or kiss frequently...and also, I am crop-dusted on a regular basis.

Sometime they remember not to eat their boogers...but when that happens, my arm or leg is usually where they wipe their snotty finger.

After the hormones have gotten the best of my teenage daughter, she almost always comes back from her 'behind-closed-doors' meltdown with apologies and offers to help in any way she can. Until the next crisis-the ending of her favorite television show, for example.

There is simply no solving the great mystery of motherhood...

Which brings me to the end of my pondering. Not because I couldn't spend a great many more moments thinking on it, but because the boys have ceased their obligatory cartoon viewing, and are now clamoring for breakfast, and informing me that one punched another accidentally (how does that work, exactly?). There have been no hormone incidents yet this morning, because my teenage daughter won't awaken until at least 11 a.m., which is apparently the sole reason for Saturday mornings in the life of a 13 year-old-girl.

Happy pondering (and hopefully chuckling) Saturday to you.

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