I want someone to tie my apron strings. . .

January 13, 2012


Snow day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


At least for the grade school kids.


Which includes Emily.


Thanks to the machinations of Mother Nature, the Kraken will remain asleep until it sees fit to wake on it's own accord.


Kraken Junior anyway.


Kraken Senior, aka Stephen, has a 9.00 am class.


I've already started the prolonged process of gently bringing him to a state of early morning wakefulness.


A process so careful, so gentle, that it resembles any one of a number of movie scenes where the lead actor is handling a fatal substance that, if mishandled in any way, could result in the annihilation of all mankind.


Yeah.


It's that dangerous.






So upset by Tikka's passing, looming workloads, the beginning of the term, I managed to forget (okay, purposefully block from my consciousness) that Stephen is teaching a 9.00 am class this term.


Imagine my internal reaction, carefully covered by my calm, external visage, when I realized an entire term of fighting with him two mornings a week to get up and get ready for his class.


This is a road that has been traveled in the past.


Not one I enjoy.


Em and Stephen in the mornings are not the pleasant people you see later in the day.


Not even close.


But both of them?


I'd like to think that I haven't done anything to insult the cosmos so dramatically that I deserved such a horrific and torturous punishment.


Whatever it was, it must have been a doozy.




Nonetheless, this week has been ca-razy.


Preparation for the first class.


Dealing with the fall out from the changes in our curriculum.


Changes that have no impact whatsoever on how this term is played out.


But thanks to Facebook, student panic, and a plethora of misinformation floating around the information highway, there have been little fires all over the place that have taken more time than I wanted to spend putting them out.


Last night when I finally walked through the front door, drawing upon all of my energy reserves in hopes that there would be enough to just. make. dinner., I see my Stephen standing in the kitchen, apron on, dinner preparations well in hand.

He says,"I have this all under control. You just go upstairs and put on your jammies,"


Because, if I am to believe the empirical evidence presented to me from my children and Stephen, I morph into the Kraken by the end of the day.


Cranky.


Crabby.


Exhausted.


Wondering if this will be the night I fall asleep at the table with my fork in my mouth.


And it would appear that Stephen knows how to handle his Kraken in the same way I know how to handle mine.


Gently.


With care.


Hoping that it doesn't turn on you.


Now THAT'S a loving husband.










Title Lyric: Apron Strings by Nothing but the Girl