Have you ever made plans with a five year old in the house? This is exactly where I miscalculated my time calculation; I did not include any potential for a five year old with a Sister-Girlfriend ATTITUDE. No, she did not swivel her braided and beaded head at me, but she might as well have done so. This is our second week together. This is my first encounter with morning ATTITUDE. I am not pleased.
I wake her at 7:00 a.m. and she obligingly goes to the bathroom as I request.
“Come back and choose your clothes,” was my next directive, very proud of the fact that I have such an independent granddaughter.
I go into the bathroom to finish my morning ablutions. My electric curlers, the curlers that get hot enough for my coarse hair, have decided not to work. The little ON light keeps blinking its single red eye at me. The curlers remain cold. So much for a stylishly coiffed head of hair this morning.
Before I go downstairs to make a sandwich for my granddaughter's lunch and prepare her breakfast oatmeal, which she loves, I walk back into the bedroom to find her still in her pajamas reclining on the bedroom floor, leaning against my now rolled up pallet.
“Didn’t I tell you to get your clothes on?”
She looks up at me from under her eyes and does not move. It is as though I am speaking in tongues without a translator and she cannot receive my word of wisdom.
I sigh and encourage her again. “Put your clothes on.”
She diffidently does so, but I decide she needs a warmer top (the morning fog has chilled the air). When I pull the top over her head, she bursts into tears.
“My head hurts,” she wails as I do my best to talk her out of her cries. Her hair was just braided this past Saturday and her scalp is still tender.
“Shush, you’ll wake everyone up.”
She wails louder. I decide to ignore the wailing sobs. “Put your shoes on.”
I walk out of the bedroom. When I return, she has her flip-flops in her hands (the tears have stopped flowing).
“You can’t wear those to school; you won’t be able to play in them.”
The wails begin anew. “These sneakers are too tight!”
“Where are your other sneakers?”
“I don’t know,” is followed by a louder “Wahhhhhhhhhh.”
“I guess you left them at home.”
My stipulation to keeping her for three weeks to attend a get ready for kindergarten summer program in my city is that she spends the in-between weekends at home with her mom so I can recuperate from the energy drain. I toss clothes aside to get to the bottom of the suitcase. No white K-Swiss. Now I feel like wailing. Sensing my frustration, she raises the wailing volume a few decibels.
“Wahhhhhhhhhhhhh.”
“Put on your shoes and socks.” I pick up the too tight sneakers and hand them to her. She does so grudgingly, between sniffles and snorts.
“Put on your jacket.” I am just full of commands.
I hand her her lunch bag full of snacks and lunch and juice and everything I hope will keep her from eating me out of house and home when she returns this afternoon. I am hoping against hope. This petite five year old eats like two horses, leaving me to muse as I consider her lean frame, “Where is it going?”
My oldest daughter, her aunt, answered my befuddled question a few days ago, “Metabolism, Mama, she burns it all up.”
“ Button your jacket.”
“I don’t know how.”
So much for independence. Still, she somehow manages to button one button, the top button, a button, which I discover as we stand in front of the elevator, is in the wrong buttonhole.
“You have your jacket buttoned wrong.”
I juggle my purse, the bag that contains her nebulizer, the pouch that holds her Epipen and Benadryl and an interoffice envelope in my left hand as I reach down to unbutton and correct that top button. I manage to get two buttons done before we reach the lobby (did I mention asthma and a peanut allergy?).
We leave the house at 7:45 a.m. I am off my calculations by fifteen minutes. We are late. I hope the bus is late. It isn’t. We are halfway down the block when the bus crosses the intersection in front of us. The lights do not cooperate. I hesitate, then decide to cross against the light as an Asian woman on the sidewalk shouts encouragement, “Go, go, go.” We run for the bus (thank goodness there is a line of people waiting) as my granddaughter, her hand gripped firmly in mine, giggles all the way to the bus door as she makes up a theme song for our adventure:
“We’re running for the bus! We’re running for the bus!”
She thinks this is great fun. She has forgotten all the morning angst and is looking forward to the adventure of Today. She is not frazzled nor bedraggled or frustrated. The caterwauling is behind her. That was then; this is now.
“And a child shall lead them. . .”
Lead on, granddaughter, lead on.
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