Our kids have been keeping busy these days.
The nights are getting later and mornings earlier. All of it—dark.
This morning, we woke one of them up at 6am for a swim practice.
The gentle press-and-hold on the tip of the nose technique is a subtle but affective way to force them awake, sometimes with them reacting in alternating swings towards the parent’s face. Sometimes it prompts a swift ducking motion causing the finger on the nose to land on the forehead of the child. In any scenario, the angry, formerly asleep child stands up and begins to get ready while the parent makes a plan to one day crawl back into bed when the kids eventually move out of the house.
This morning we woke Hanna up, then checked for messages and when I saw the subject line “Practice Has Been Canceled” I thought it was a mirage.
Just like a crystal lake in the middle of a dry, hot desert, there it was, permission to go back to bed. But was it imagined?
Hanna stood very still, quietly at the foot of her bed. She didn’t turn her body to hear the news, just stared straight blankly as if this was a military drill and whatever I told her, she was going to listen intently and react swiftly.
I whispered, “Hanna, you can go back to bed. Practice was canceled.”
And the bear snores on.
