Calling on favors from friends and neighbors, I significantly limited the amount of child dropping off and picking up my parents had to do during their recent visit.
But they did have to bring Henry home from middle school and take him back the next day, while my husband and I enjoyed an early Valentine’s getaway in Raleigh.
Taking Henry to school is not usually my job. He likes to arrive by 7 a.m., 20 minutes before the tardy bell rings.
This is approximately two hours before I am fully functioning.
On the rare occasion when that responsibility falls on me, Henry sets his alarm and wakes me up a few minutes before it’s time to go.
I stumble down the stairs to find him, fully dressed and packed for the day, cheerfully eating the breakfast he’s made while reading the paper.
He tells me about what’s in the news. Last year around this time, Henry told me with great interest about Buddy the groundhog emerging from his hole at Dan Nicholas Park only to see his shadow and declare six more weeks of winter.
Apparently the year before that, it took Buddy so long to come out that park staff thought he might be dead and dug him up.
Now, they let him sleep as long as he wants.
Buddy’s lucky.
We climbed into the van and Henry chatted all the way to school about this and that while I managed the occasional guttural reply.
Although it was still dark outside when we arrived, he jumped out, pulled on his huge backpack, grabbed his lunchbox and trombone and gave me the slight wave and nod that children adopt exclusively for their parents when they enter middle school.
Amazing, I thought, already scheming ways to get another 30 minutes of sleep before taking the girls to school. How can a mother and son have such different body clocks?
My mom and I did a dry run before I left Thursday, so she would know exactly how to retrieve Henry, including navigating the twisty course through the parking lot.
Taking him to and from school will be a highlight of my parents’ visit.
Before they arrived from South Dakota, I went on the prerequisite cleaning frenzy, changing sheets, emptying a few drawers, moving piles of Nellie’s treasured and indispensable stuff to the attic, even hauling up the Christmas tree and boxes of ornaments and restoring the dining room to its previous use.
That last item on my to-do list could have waited another week, as my mom has been known to leave their tree up until Valentine’s Day as well.
I know my parents don’t really care about a clean house or clean sheets or Christmas leftovers. They are impressed by listening to Henry play his trombone, watching Nellie play soccer and hearing Clara’s explanation of the life-sized paper walrus that she dragged home from school.
Actually, considering that it’s still below freezing in South Dakota with about three feet of snow on the ground, all I really had to do to impress my parents was open the front door.
Emily Ford covers the N.C. Research Campus.