MotherMorphosis

“I’ll pick you guys up at 5:30, we’ll go get your brother, and then we’ll have a “supermarket party.” (Everything’s more fun when you call it a “party,” including sock matching and vacuuming.) “Don’t we have anything tonight?” my middle son asked. “Nope! All we need to do is get to the store. The cupboard is pretty bare…” I had been making trips to the convenient (and more expensive) supermarket that was just around the corner from our house since the last time we did a big shopping. We had finished boy scouts for the year and the spring baseball season had just ended meaning we had a week off from sports before summer baseball started (except for the following night when I learned that we’d need to go to the football field to pick up our equipment for practices that would be starting sometime in August – I do not know when, since I do not appear to be on that distribution list, otherwise I wouldn’t have had to find out about the equipment pick up second-hand). I had made it th...

I had just joined a conference call that wasn’t on my calendar, that I had only realized was scheduled because the agenda had landed in my inbox ten minutes before the call. It would be my 3 rd meeting that morning and it wasn’t even 10:30 yet. My afternoon was crowded with kid-logistics because it was a half-day of school and one of my older sons had a play date; my youngest was supposed to go to a meet-your-teacher event for his new school (he will be starting kindergarten in the fall), which meant I had to pick him up way early from preschool; and we had two baseball games that evening, thus I would have to pick up my oldest from extended day somewhere after the teacher meeting so we could swap kids with another family for carpooling. It was still up in the air when I’d be picking up my middle son from his playdate. I wondered when I was going to get any “work” done that day, and resigned myself to the fact that I’d be up for the third shift that night (first shift = regular work d...

I was on my way downstairs after church, headed into the kitchen to make English muffin pizzas for the next activity – a Boy Scout meeting to work on one of the kids’ religious emblems. As I passed through the children’s fellowship area, there were a couple of teen-aged brothers rolling around on the floor with my youngest, who likes to sit with his “big friends” during the service. “Why does he always sit with them ?” My middle son had asked me just that morning. “Oh, probably because they’re nice to him,” I answered matter-of-factly. He just looked at me. The Bigs were tossing balloons around. I don’t remember why, but when my oldest approached me with a “Hi Mama,” I asked, “Who do you think felt worse – Abel, Cain, or their parents?” “Abel.” “Well, I wonder…he’s dead. Do you think he felt much of anything?” “Oh, I mean Cain!” “Yeah...I wouldn’t have wanted to be him. But I can also imagine how sad their parents would be…” I kept walking towards the kitchen as my oldest bopped my mid...

“I don’t want to go to soccer!” my youngest declared. “Oh, c’mon, honey. You love soccer.” “No, I yousta love soccer. Now I don’t.” “Okay, well, just show up. You can get your medal.” It was the last day of the season. Was it just the transition from one activity to the next? He and one of his brothers had been engrossed with sorting through Pokemon cards for a good portion of the morning. This activity included unearthing them from all the crevices of our home, leaving all sorts of examined-and-discarded items in their wake, and some drawers dumped out, too. “Oh, all right!” Grumble, grumble, as he stalked off to finish getting dressed. “But don’t sign me up for soccer again!” he huffed over his shoulder. Was he serious? Once we got to the soccer field, my son seemed to enjoy himself. I couldn’t even imagine no more soccer at all, but it was not the first time he said this to me. Two weeks prior he’d added, “I always lose!” (which is ridiculous, because “everyone’s a winner” in U6 s...