Slice of Life #3 - Breakfast


This year we became a three-schedule family.  The girls are in elementary (8:30-3:30); my son is in middle school (7:30-2:30) and I'm teaching high school (8:55-4:05).  It really means we're going from early to late.  Every.  Day.

When I got the notice that #1 son would be getting on the bus at 6:30am, I was a bit shocked.  Seriously?  The poor kid would be non-stop tired.  I imagined grouchy mornings, pulling back the covers to squinty eyes and a crackly voice pleading for five more minutes.  I imagined evening homework battles with an exhausted kid trying to do math, writing and reading when he really just wanted to go to sleep.

Middle school has been none of the above.  Like so much of parenting, my worries outweighed the reality.  Somehow my kid gets out of bed every morning at 5:55, rubs the sleep out of his eyes and gets on with it.  No drama even if he is tired.  The best part is that we have breakfast together every morning.  I fix my coffee and bowl of oatmeal, and he makes his little feast - toast with jam, bagels and cream cheese, yogurt, fruit, cereal, whatever he feels like that day, and we sit at the island chatting about sports, what his plan for the day is, or what the weather will be like.

I'm savoring every moment with this boy who before my eyes has transformed from a chubby, semi-crazy toddler into a squirrely, elementary-school, on-the-go boy, and now into this responsible almost-teenager who does his homework and helps me make dinner.  I'm savoring this in-between time of middle school, when he's too old for most of his little kids stuff (except Legos), but not yet an independent teenager off with friends, wanting to drive, get a job, go on dates.

I'm savoring the quiet breakfast conversations while I'm still mom and he's still my little boy.

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