The New Saturdays Mornings

Waiting in line at the post office a few years ago brought about this reflection on Saturday mornings. I, content and well-rested after sleeping in, reading unbothered and eating my wife's apple-cinnamon pancakes stood in front of a beautiful and exhausted young mother. Married and waiting for children, I knew my idyllic Saturday mornings were numbered. Now, a father of an almost-three year old, Saturdays are no longer us time. My wife and I can no longer enjoy the executive breakfast or the lazy reading and comfort coffee and all the other Saturday pleasures afforded to young married couples. Parenting is a great job; it's the best job I've ever had, but you don't get to take a day off for a well-deserved sabbath.

My new Saturday mornings run like this. My daughter's noises wake my wife up. The noises could be singing, crying, talking, laughing, grunting, coughing or any combination thereof, but my wife wakes up. My wife sleeps like a soldier - any small noise and she is up and ready for action. I'm glad she's not the kind to keep a gun under her pillow, or else I'd get shot in the ribs every time I needed to use the toilet at night. The noises can come at any point between 7 and 8:30 AM, the later the more merciful. My wife rouses me with an elbow and a whisper of "Schatz," which in this context is German for "darling." I wake up, fumble with whatever clothes I can find and exit the bedroom stage right. I let my wife go back to sleep. Saturday morning is her turn.

I go to my daughter. She's usually happy to see me, though sometimes she protests, "Mama! NOT Papa!" "Sorry kid, you're stuck with me." is my response. I pick her up.

***

What follows is a philosophical discussion about the potty. My more progressive argument is that big girls, including all the cool kids in her future kindergarten, go pee pee on the potty. The potty is the future, and even though I'll still love her if she's wearing diapers during her drivers' test, it is good and just and right to take the porcelain splash. It's well worth pointing out, I continue, that those who use the potty are often rewarded with gummy bears. My daughter's arguments are more agrarian, a kind of curmudgeonly conservationism suspicious of change and newfangled technology. While she has successfully tried and used the potty, she doesn't think the evidence for permanent change is very compelling. The diaper has served her well for almost three years, keeping leaks at a minimum and promoting a lifestyle where nothing need be interrupted just because nature calls. Indeed, if more adults wore diapers, then economic productivity would increase as toilet breaks decrease. And isn't the toilet break just one more staple of the lazy, anti-capitalist worker? In the same way, my daughter can continue coloring, playing with her dolls or watching "Baby Praise" without that unproductive walk down the hall. In any case, the toilet is cruelly cold, especially in morning.

***

After setting a livid toddler on the toilet with a 50% chance of achieving the desired result, we move to our living/dining room. She scampers to her toys and I take a dreary walk to the kitchen. Any walk I take in the morning is dreary until I have my coffee. I make coffee. While the coffee drips, I put my daughter's oat meal in the microwave, grate an apple to put over the oatmeal, pour her milk, take out two pieces of bread, put it on a plate, spread some delicious German spreadable over it (either creamy honey or creamy meat), put a mandarin orange next to the bread. The coffee is finished. I pour my coffee, pour some more milk over her oatmeal and voela! breakfast for two is served. Restaurant quality multitasking.

After putting the appropriate plates in the appropriate places, I pick me daughter up to bring her to her seat. She then erupts in a declaration of independence. After all, she can climb into her chair by herself. I let her do so. While we eat, I pop open the laptop. Now I know some of you are judging. The laptop at the table is against all conventional parenting wisdom. Screens distract from loving attention, and technology is harmful to child development. Technology should be kept away from the child until it is able to grow its own cucumbers and spear its own fish in the river. And besides, I'm a terrible example. Let me respond. First, I still engage my daughter. I really do. Second, we always eat a computer free family lunch in traditional German fashion, as well as an evening bread. And third, who doesn't read the newspaper at breakfast? I just don't have a paper version.

Breakfast is finished. I push my daughter's stool back so she can get down by herself. Any of the following could happen: reading a children's book, listening to a children's CD, drawing on the doodle board or putting a farm-based puzzle together. Personally, I'd rather keep reading the screen, like in the old days. At the couch, or at the table or (in nice weather) out on the balcony. Often, she plays, and I get to read. But then, I feel a little hand tap my knee. Time to close the laptop or the the book. Her turn. Whichever book is on. "Curious George?" "Mickey Mouse?" "Little People?" "ABC?" "Jesus?" She usually asks regarding on her mood - usually a particular book stays her favorite for about three weeks or so, and comes back again after a few months. But I read. I reluctantly put aside my selfish pleasure of a morning built around me. Not that there's anything wrong with that, when no one else is there. But love is a less-accessible pleasure. Close the macbook, the newspaper or the book. Put the child on the lap, read the book for the thousands time. The annoyance gives way to a certain joy that's stronger in memory, but always there. I give the characters voices, she tells me what's in the pictures. Love and love. Coffee helps.