“Every … single … morning.” These words came from a woman who had the frozen expression and careful diction of a person who has been trying really, really hard not to lose her temper.
“Today it was socks,” she said. “We are already late. We are leaving the house. And one child” — she tipped her head to indicate the offender and lowered her voice so the child couldn’t overhear — “says there are no socks. No socks. Socks cannot be found.”
Needless to say, socks could be found, but a child who dawdles during the crucial, hectic minutes before leaving for school will be the last person to discover them.
Usually it’s the child’s mother who races upstairs, removes socks from the drawer in which they are stored so that any fool could see them, and rushes back down with steam billowing from her ears.
My friend’s remark — and her exasperated wonderment — made me laugh in sympathy. It was an immense relief to hear that the intense drama that had just played out in my own house had taken place in someone else’s as well.
Probably almost wherever a family can be found, there will be at least one person — and to be fair, it might be a parent — who simply cannot get it together in the morning no matter how early the alarm goes off.
Furthermore, the simple tasks of morning are, if you break them down, surprisingly complex. A relative of mine once had to take classes in preparation for a job working with the mentally handicapped and was amazed to learn that the mere act of preparing a cup of coffee involves as many as 16 small steps. That’s no obstacle for the agile-witted, but it can be enough to thwart the mentally challenged.
So too, it appears, can the exigencies of the morning routine be troublesome for children who are sleepy or preoccupied or not wholly in charge of what psychologists call the “executive function.”
“For the love of Pete, eat your pancakes!” I had urged that very morning, as amid the hubbub of the breakfast table one child sat in a trance.
A moment later, when the clock did that awful weekday morning trick of suddenly eating quarter-hours in the time it normally takes for a minute to pass, we had to go.
“Has everyone found shoes? Brushed teeth? Made beds? Got your lunchboxes?”
“I think so,” said the abstracted person, “No, wait, I forgot to brush my teeth.”
“Well, run run run!” I cried, as the other children and I dashed around, clearing the table and grabbing backpacks. A convoy started for the front door and the waiting car. I’d collected my own things and was heading out when I remembered that the straggler was still upstairs.
“COME … ON!” I bawled up the stairs, just as ladylike as you please. “WE ARE LAAAATE! WHAT ARE YOU DOOOOOING?”
“Be down in a minute!” came a distant voice. “I’m just playing with the gerbils. …”
Meghan Cox Gurdon’s column appears on Sunday and Thursday. She can be contacted at mgurdon@washingtonexaminer.
