Humanity

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After five testy days, Simon and Daniil have made friends. On Daniil's terms, as per photo. The cat exhibits remarkable patience and, odd as it might sound in this context, remarkable humanity. These two have travelled a long way from the first morning they laid eyes on each other when Daniil promptly and literally spat at Simon, cat-like, and then whipped a toothbrush at his head.
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It's after midnight and Daniil is fast asleep in my bedroom next door. I've cherished these past three hours to myself, tidying up, reading email, scheming how to create a picture chart that illustrates our morning routine so that maybe, just maybe, I can lend Daniil a stronger sense of structure and steadiness. Selfishly, I hope this strategy wins me even a tad less jolting of focus from thing to thing to thing every two minutes. Or maybe this is par for the course with any three year old?
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Here's how our morning may read. I hope to find some happy accompanying photos or drawings online. Or, if anyone out there is an artist or cartoonist, please lend us a whimsical hand.

• Wake Up: Sunshine!
• Pee/Prayer/Thanksgiving
• Get Dressed
• Breakfast: Help with Table and Food Prep
• Brush Teeth/Pee
• Neighborhood Walk/Backyard Play/Garden
• Music/Book
• Morning Outing/Activity
• Lunch: Table and Food Prep

Do I actually expect our mornings to play out like this? Nyet. But at least when we veer off course, there will be an actual course we are veering off from! And, in case you think I'm totally anal... I am ever open to, in fact I look forward to, all of the tangential delights, tendernesses, moments of sheer subbornness, tests of wills, and other gifts and challenges that provide the heart and soul, the unpredictable and ever-complex humanity, to this otherwise colorless, one-dimensional list.

When I was in training to become a school principal, one of my mentors advised me to memorize and take to heart the following mantra: The interruptions are the work. The same can be said, I'm quickly discovering, of parenting. The interruptions, the seeming tangents, the ever-changing shades and waves of emotion (both Daniil's and mine), the googly eyes from the car seat in the back seat of the car, the spontaneous hug, the irascible refusal to pick up the pickle off the kitchen floor... from moment to simple moment, in and through each interaction, no matter how seemingly small, we are forging a momentous relationship with one another, with the world around us and, God willing, with Love itself.