M is for "Morning Madness"

Part I

My Morning Madness

To tell you the truth, I have never woken up very easily in the morning.  And when it comes to dawn, I have two angels that have lead me on the road to righteous awakening.  For those whom are near and dear to me, know that it's hysterical that I can take care of any other individual far less myself in the ante meridiem.

I'll admit that I owe my grade school career to my angelic mother and Mr. Tice, the police officer down the street.  Officer Tice's children were younger than me, they walked and always made it to the bus stop on time ~ but I didn't.  So when his shift coincided with mine, he would wait for me in front of my house in his squad car, everyday, and drive me to the corner.  (I rode either in the front of the vehicle ~ which I preferred ~ or the back seat.  I discovered that no matter how hard you tried, you simply can't escape from the back seat of a squad car.  Perhaps, that's why he took such good care of me, and helped to mold my future in the right direction.)  At any rate, when his shift didn't coincide with ours, my mom would either drive me or ride me on her bike to school. 

Remember (mind you) in those days, Burleys and bike seats weren't yet invented, but God did have someone invent that old-fashioned thing called the fender, which is were I sat.  Needless to say, after a couple-miles of riding that way, it's wasn't a fender-friendly memory.

Then one day my other angel was sent down from heaven to rescue us.  (Actually, she came to visit from Grass Lake, Michigan, but she was a Godsend just the same.)

My Auntie Jo & My Mom, Doty

Spring 2002 in Arizona

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 My Auntie Jo was staying with us for awhile.  Day after day, she observed our morning routine, and this is the conclusion she came up with:

"This is unbelievable!   You dress her; feed her; brush her hair; drop kick her out the door every single day; and SHE still misses the bus!!  Doty, I know Leelee's only twelve, but you've got to start giving the girl COFFEE, and that's all there is to it!!  Tomorrow we are changing your lives!"

For the most part, she changed our lives; I started drinking coffee as an elementary student, and it helped. I'm still as slow as a snail in the mornings, but I have improved.  I know, I'm the joke of my family, and that's okay; my relatives are befuddled at the mind-boggling thought of me actually having three children, and getting them out of bed and out the door to school.

Part II

Edie Marie's Morning Madness

When Edie Marie was little, and Edie's dad had left already for work (early ~ o so early), and the babies hadn't yet risen.  Since neither my mom nor my Auntie Jo were there to serve me my coffee in bed, I could barely make it out of bed to even set foot into Edie's room right across the hall.  So, my mom would call me — long distance — every ten minutes until I was up and walking.  But sometimes . . . Edie would be out like a light and she'd roll over ever so sweetly and say,

"Mummie, snuggle the sleepies away."

Edie Marie & Me

 Edie Marie & Me

And it didn't matter her age, all she would have to do was cuddle a spoon in my direction.  And Wow!  It was amazing how fast I would fall.  The next thing you know, I'm reliving that childhood morningmare of watching that big yellow bus go right on by, and this time not the corner of my street a quarter-mile away, but worse, driving by the front of our house... there it goes by the driveway.

Then junior high rolled around, grades seven & eight, and I am absolutely positive that the school Edie went to had had just as much of me as I had had with them by the end of her "doing time" or as they called it "their career" there. 

The first day of school, I called her out for a couple of hours, because it was Emma & Evan's first day of kindergarten, and it was certainly a "once in a lifetime" must see for Edie Marie to partake in that momentous milestone in life.   After all she was basically there mother, too, in so many ways... AND... Unless I was wrong,

She wasn't studying for her doctorate yet!

A mishap (admittedly on my part) occurred when it was my first time calling her in sick in the morning to the junior high.  Edie was ill for a week with the cold-flu crud. As it turned out, and unbeknownst to me, with my eyes not wanting to open in the a.m., the junior high had only one digit different in their telephone number than the elementary school she had attended forever did.  And I called the wrong number four daze. In that school system, when you report an absence, you're prompted by a computerized voice to record your student's name, grade, teacher, and so on.  And as it turned out, the computer voice was the same as the elementary school she went to. So, for four days, I had been calling Edie in sick; and for three days the junior high representative would call me around ten or so asking where Edie was. I said I phoned her in; they didn't believe me. On the fourth day, the same lady called, and told me that she figured out "what my problem was". I had been calling the elementary school, not the junior high, to report her absence. Which, believe you me, was sssooo wrong; no one had ever done that before...  I mean, the elementary school didn't have a problem with it, and I'm a morning zombie, so I didn't let it bother me. 

The summer before Edie entered junior high (Edie & her friends were all around twelve years old), she was in an unforeseeable accident.  She was coming home from a camping trip with some girlfriends.  She was sitting in the center of the rear seat of a van with just a lap belt on.  They were at a red light when a Jevic semi-truck hit two vehicles, rear-ended them, and kept on going hitting one vehicle after another (twelve total, I believe).  The vehicle Edie was in, ended up doing donuts and hitting three other cars.  Edie and her friends were very lucky with their cuts, bruises, and severe whiplash.  (And even though she still has back problems today, I'm happy that's all that happened; the alternative could have been worse.)  The young woman in the first car, flew out of her window, because she wasn't wearing her seat belt; she died instantly.  Her car then blew up, so she would have been a loss anyway, but the truck driver got off of manslaughter, because of the Illinois seat belt law technicality. 

Every other day, we went to physical therapy with Edie for a year.  There were so many days when she could not even get out of bed for being in so much pathetic pain.  It took hours of hot showers and heating pads, Motrin and Tylenol, not to mention the countless rubdowns, until something would "kick-in" and I could get the girl up and out the door for school.  And, yes, day-after-day, I'd have to phone in and leave a message at school as to why she was frequently quite late.  And, no, I didn't want to do it, but I did.  Then came the day when a school representative called me about her tardiness.  

We just had a bad weekend with Edie because it was now nine months since the accident, and she couldn't stand on stage to sing through an entire concert.  Her spirit was crushed; and as a family, we all suffered right along with her, but in different ways.  Therefore, I really had had it with everything, so I was prepared for trial.  The school had a truancy official, principal, vice principal, secretary, teachers, ... at this conference, and I basically said: 

¨    Hasn't the reason for her tardiness or her absences to many doctors been the same every time, which is her back pain?  Yes. 

¨    This has been a well-documented event from the media to the medical profession, true? Yes.   

¨    I can't predict what days she's going to wake up in pain, and I'm not going to start her day at four in the morning just in case she can't get out of bed that day, and I'm especially not going to if she's had nightmares all night long. 

¨    Doesn't she utilize her adaptive P.E. course properly, which is if she can't participate in that day's activities, she is to get out her "rubber band" and go to town with physical therapy stretches?  Yes.

¨    Does she not make up any and all classroom assignments she's missed when she has been tardy or absent, and turn them in on time?  Yes. 

¨    Are her grades dropping below A's or B's?  No. 

¨    Is she being disrespectful and/or disruptive to any teachers, staff, or peers?  No. 

¨    Then the only problem I see here is the fact that this God forsaken accident has totally disrupted Edie Marie's life, and if you still feel a need to deem me "an unfit mother" since I have such incredibly rotten parenting skills; and if you deem Edie as truant since she's such rotten student, then you go right ahead. 

Well, I left and I never heard from them again, period. So, we weeded our way through that year. 

When the next year rolled around, all I can say is Edie came back into world again with a vengeance.  She fought everyday; doing physical therapy on her own, jogging again...

and in the spring of 2001, she had rebuilt her strength back almost to the Edie we used to know and love.  She ranked sixth in the 200-yard dash among all the eighth-grade girls in Palatine.  Not too shabby for a city with a population of around 65,000 to 70,000, would you say?

When Edie was in high school she was an absolute grand rendition of the absolute opposite of her mother; you got it, she woke up, dressed, ate, and either made the bus, got a ride from a friend, or drove everyday. 

After living through the trials and tribulations of Edie's elementary years and learning how to rise and shine with no ease, this brings us to the Double~Trouble Duo and learning how to deal with their dubious deeds, and how to maintain what little mind I still had remaining.

Part III

Emma & Evan's Morning Madness

 Little Gull

Longboat Key, Florida

May 1998

Aren't they cute?  Don't you just want to kiss them or eat them up?  Twins, one of a kind times two.  Now include the challenge of the morning marathon, and you have the timeclock of rush waving its arms in the air, grabbing at my head, and pulling out my hair.

Duck Watching 19 October 1996 The Morning of Their Second Birthday

Let's reiterate for a piece.  Evan & Emma love birds.  Ever since they were very little they just had to see their ducks every morning in the back of our house along the brook.  To this day, Emma just loves ducks, all ducks!

As you will discover, this was a Langer-Twin's Ritual, and grew into great flight.  From ducks, we have progressed into an Audubon Society's dream; these two knew and imitated more birds than any other child their age did.  And to see Emma do a chicken, was hysteria at its best. 

"Flamingo"  By Emma 1999

I can't tell you how many photographs we have taken of birds or ducks or the number of great artistic works that have been created.

Emma with Her "Birds" Book
Lido Beach
St. Armands Circle, Florida
Spring 2002

 Then we have the numerous books about birds.  Rule of thumb:  if you forget any and all books on your feathery-friends at home, you absolutely must buy a new one.

At any rate, waking up in the morning, catching the bus, and going to school.  Kindergarten for the twins and I went pretty well.  They both had the same teacher and went in the afternoons.  Their bus driver was a wonderful person named Sarah.  She's had a most fascinating life and had even served in the Israeli army.  I told Emma & Evan that they had better behave in her bus, because she knows how to use an uzi!  They behaved; we had a good year.

Then came first grade.  We had to wake up early again and the only thing that seemed to stay the same was the way we conducted ourselves in the morning.  Me, a walking-zombie in a daze, and the Langer-Twin's Ritual out their bedroom window. 

Edie's dad would wake her up, and before they leave for the day, they wake us.  This is now 7:30 a.m. and the bus-stop time is at 8:41 a.m. prompt.  We have an hour and ten minutes to work with.  Sounds reasonable don't you think?  Huh!

I give kisses, hugs, scratch backs, and give each one a piggyback ride to the living room.  Then the fun starts.  Neither of them want the same thing for breakfast unless its like Fruit Loops, Cocoa Puffs, or any other bowl full of fun.  Yah, right!  My kids cannot sit still to begin with and they actually think I'm going to feed them that stuff and send them to school to bounce off the walls all day.

After they eat, their job is to go upstairs to get dressed, use the restroom, and so on; my job (if I choose to accept it) is to make their snacks and lunches, because they refuse to eat hot lunch.  Fifteen minutes go by and I yell up the stairs, "Are you dressed yet?"  And they dutifully reply, "Yes, Mummie!"  I, being the on-the-money kind of mom that I am, naturally assume that that's exactly what they are doing. 

Then another five, ten minutes go by and the situation repeats itself:

I yell up the stairs, "Are you dressed yet?"

And they dutifully reply, "Yes, Mummie!"

So I sneak upstairs and find them, and what do you think they are doing with those binoculars...



The Langer-Twin's Morning Ritual and talking about "the birds, and the ducks, and look there's a bunny-rabbit, and a beaver-dam" . . .

"Where? " . . . "Right over there. "  They trade the binoculars. 

"O!  Yah!  I see it now . . . the beaver, the pussy willows, the yellow finches, the buds on the trees, the tulips, and the great blue heron is back!  I wonder if the white egret is back?"

And I say, "Hey Batman Butt and your Cohort in Crime, speaking of birds, there goes the big yellow Bluebird that flies the two of you to school, AGAIN!"  Then I proceed to throw my arms up and try NOT to pull my hair out day after day after day!

Now, Edie Marie is in college, and lives in another city with her boyfriend; Emma & Evan are in high school, and I am divorced.  We (Emma, Evan & I) all depend upon each other to wake up in the morning every single day.  We (Emma, Evan & I) all  have cell phones and religiously use them every single day.   We (Emma, Evan & I) they are our routine as our alarms every single day.  And we (Emma, Evan & I) all sleep through our alerts, bells, buzzers, sirens, whistles, and snoozes every single day. 

Moral of the Story:

I cannot believe that I'm in my fifties

&

I still miss the bus!

I want you to know that when I grow up,

I want to sleep in. 

Then whenever I wake up

&

I decide it's morning,

I want to take:

my coffee (Kona is my favorite)

my bird book

my binoculars

my music

and I will go to all of my favorite beaches

drink mimosas

&

reflect back upon the morning madness

&

buses that have gone right on by.

© Copyright 1976-2011 Leslie D. Zenoni dba Coloured Pencils