Mornings In Pandemonia

Enough politics and society. Today, domestic-blogging. Apropos of nothing.

My share of the household work includes the 6:30 to 8:00 AM shift - when three little girls (ages 11 years, 8 years and 5 months) need to be roused, dressed correctly, given some kind of nutrition, and brought to school and the babysitter's house. This must be done - here's the kicker - while getting myself ready for work. The retinue also includes such activities as completing last minute homework and offering words of encouragement and advice about mean girls, good choices, and sensible hair-dos. All the while a golden retriever is running from room to room, hoping to snarf down an unattended English muffin, and making the baby shriek with glee. (She recently decided he's a bucket of laughs.)

So the first couple hours of the day involve pandemonium. Sometimes it doesn't work, and the price is paid in a homework or lunch left on the counter, an unkempt appearance, hurt feelings, or a 9AM meeting that Dad is rushing to attend, cell phone forgotten, gas on empty.

When it does work - this is what I didn't expect about fatherhood - it seems like a miracle. A chaotic ballet performed with precision - almost smashing apart into pieces, but finally not. I imagine a stop-motion video of people running everywhere in my home in a fury of activity, then finally out the door. Before it closes a doggie treat is thrown and tumbles in slow motion through the air towards the golden retriever, who snatches it quickly and settles in for his long daily vigil, gazing out the window and guarding the house from treacherous squirrels and their dastardly plots.

Then the girls are unloaded in the mini-van lineup at school, usually with a few encouraging words - remember that science project you are supposed to bring home, and after school, drama class. (Drama class is every day, with these girls.) Finally when my better half - who has her own frenetic schedule, out the door even earlier - calls later in the morning and asks me how it went, I say "It worked." And hopefully everything is working, and when we're older and the kids are away we may wonder how we pulled it off, but also remember that these so-ordinary challenges are when we at our most alive.