My Booger Morning.

The gentle tones of brass origins come floating out of my radio alarm in a gradual close before the very British-sounding and nasal voice soothingly reassures me that Vivaldi originally wrote that for a royal figure of something something.  Wife is still sacked out and my trudge to the kitchen is heavy with the anticipation of my first cup of coffee and before I can wonder for too long what the children are up to, the older two come trundling out of the playroom like miniature zombies with the toddler purposely stomping after them and issuing forth her own brand of marching orders.  Its still cute the way that she believes she actually commands the world around her.  Cute, for now.

I'd broken my favourite coffee cup yesterday, the one I'd used just about every day for months, and even though I'd already planned my route back through the $2 section of the Cheap Shit Shoppe for another I find that I'm strangely okay with having another "favourite".  Part of being more malleable in life, I suppose.  Another of life's compounding mysteries hits me as I dump a spoonful of sugar into my mug when I realise that I still can't make coffee as good as my wife despite the fact that the process is an incredibly simple one.  My nose starts to run as if I've just taken a deep breathe and blown into a dusty cup or some other stupidly simple thing that I'm sometimes known to do.  I Farmer Blow into the sink after checking that no one is watching as I not only choose not to teach my children the technique of holding one nostril closed while shooting a snot rocket out of the other, but I also like to avoid hearing "Ewwwwww, gross."

The children are meandering around the house with various books and small items I'm sure I'll later find on my chair or wedged in the folds of my side of the bed as I spy yesterday's local newspaper sitting pristinely on the dining table.  For a local rag, this one is pretty good, and I can feel my inner cogs grinding in anticipation of coffee and some quiet time in the toilet.  The latter lasted roughly 1 minute 35 seconds before my youngest gave me further reminding that I've forgotten to lock the door.  The article I was enjoying about Disabled Riding down in Oakford was interrupted halfway through by repetitive phrases informing me of what I was doing.  "Daddy doona poo!  Daddy doona poo!" is easy enough to ignore as I scanned the article to see if the riding school was anywhere near the property we're looking at acquiring, but as proven by her actions first thing this morning, this is a child who will not be ignored.  Several slaps to my newspaper preceded a growled argument about her departure making the experience less pleasant than I'd hoped.

Taking only 2 reminders to get themselves breakfast indicated the children would be moving at a slower pace today so I parked myself and my notebook at the table to ensure that morning idiocy be kept to a minimum.  My notes on how to improve software and processes and heaven forbid, even make some money at it, experienced the same limitations as my morning ablutions when my children happened to ask a rare pertinent and easily explainable question about why "R" and "TM" are written after certain things.  This actually turned into something fun as I explained that I'm allowed to bake Barbie-sized hard donuts made from wholegrains in our kitchen, I'm just not allowed to put them in a box, write "Cheerios" on the side and sell them on the street.  By the time the subject of lawsuits and lawyers were covered, it was decided that while its far safer to just buy the box at the grocery store and enjoy the mini-mini donuts at home the term "Juddios" has some business merit that shouldn't be discarded.

Despite the fact that it always slows them down, hearing the happy chatter as the older two dressed and brushed their teeth pleased me and I was able to throw together their lunches and settle back down to my notes before the toddler once again asserted herself by educating me on the differences of colour on the box of Cheerios while surreptitiously slipping handfuls of them from the bowl onto her lap and floor.  The big school kids worked their way out the door with small and bumbling hugs and goodbyes punctuated with a tiny person insisting her in diapered way that she get a hug too and it occurred to me that it won't be long before she's heading out the door with them.

Several minutes later and my oldest has come back through saying his bike is broken again.  The gearshift needs tightened and tends to let the chain slip off the bottom gear.  Something I've explained to him and shown him how to fix, but something he's repeatedly shown isn't his cup of tea.  When I asked how long he took trying to fix it and he'd replied that he'd spent most of the passed time simply trying to get the gate open, I was once again amazed at the things that I simply take for granted as being "easy" that my children struggle with on a daily basis.  With a fixed up bike and an open gate, I sent him off with a rocket-booster push that sent him shooting down the driveway with an excited yelp before I did a double Farmer Blow towards the fence.  I looked up in time to see that the toddler had followed me out but has yet to pay enough attention to learn or try this snot-removal method.

This brief period in the morning is my favourite time, before the toddler gets bored of seeing the backs of her parents office chairs and clambering across laps and forcing tiny plastic cats, ponies and soldiers into my hands, and before I get sucked in my emails of clients and potential clients and the lure of more work and more money, and especially before it gets hot enough to force us to close the windows and switch fans on.  I had my notes and my brilliant ideas on the further enhancement of my business, I had my coffee and I had my youngest happily occupied with some toast and juice.  I was set to take on the world, but I figured I'd like a nice breeze from the front of the house, so I propped open the front door and my face was hit with the wonderfully calming warm breeze from across the park.  As I walked back into the kitchen my nose began it's protestations again and I briefly wondered why I'm allergic to park air before grabbing a tissue and attempting to do this whole thing properly.

I'm not sure if it's the viscosity of the mucous or if its just that I've only perfected one technique at the expense of the other, but while wiping snot from out of my chin whiskers, I couldn't help but be reminded of my children's difficulties with the simpler things in life.  As I stand in my kitchen and approach my day with in hopes that I'll actually improve my business, our income and therefore our lives, I am humbled by the fact that I am still learning.  A semi-ridiculous question is "Shouldn't I have figured this out by now?" that is really no more ridiculous than the thought that I should expect anyone else to either.  Its all part of what this Life thing is really and we are always learning.

So go on kids, and brush your hair in that weird way where you completely ignore one half of your head, take 5 minutes to open a gate, put Cheerios in your crotch and keep taking bites of blue Play-Doh while telling me how yucky it is.  I'll be right here, cleaning snot out of my goatee, paying bills out of a dwindling bank account and wondering how to finally charge people for a service that I've been giving away for free for months.  Who the hell am I to tell you that you should've figured out anything by now?

Posted by JuddHole

This blog was the one that changed everything in my life, so it stands to reason that it continue to do so. I hope it starts with my underwear.