Carrie Link

love.

Second morning in a row I rise early, get my coffee, light my candles, prepare to meditate (yes, I meditate with coffee, is that a problem?) and Rojo foils my plans. He's UP. When he is up, he is UP! He makes fully caffeinated look like a joke, he is high as a kite, talking a million miles an hour, all over the house, humming, playing the recorder, tapping, banging his legs against noisy objects. He wants toast, two pieces with cinnamon sugar, two with garlic salt. He needs to sneak more shakes of each, then turn the whole thing upside down and flick it, shaking the excess all over the kitchen. He needs to check that all the doors to the three bathrooms are shut. He needs to grab the kitchen towel and wipe his mouth with it, then throw it on the floor. He needs to fill four water bottles with water and a ton of ice. He needs to grab sponges and towels to wipe all the spilled water, then throw those on the floor, too. He needs to talk in a Lois voice the entire time, asking questions with no answers, asking me what Mikey in third grade's middle name is, asking me if 2002 is four years ago, asking me if it is 9:00 AM Eastern time, asking me if I know why he needs a different water bottle. Asking me if I know what this complicated hand gesture means (turns out it means I want Goldfish crackers, the colored kind). Asking me what time his sister is going to wake up, in Eastern time.

Asking, asking, asking.

Humming, humming, humming.

Kicking, kicking, kicking.

Spilling, spilling, spilling.

Wiping, wiping, wiping,

Shouting, shouting, shouting.

"MOM!" Lois voice, "Can we have prayer time today, just you and me?"

"OK," I answer, praying he forgets.

"RIGHT NOW!" he bellows in the Lois voice, fingers dripping with butter, cinnamon and garlic salt.

"FINE!" I answer, irreverently.

We sit down at the prayer table (others call it a dining room table, but we don't dine, we pray). Each prayer time starts with drawing from a small velvet bag, the angel word-of-the-day. Rojo is so squirrelly, he is still talking about Eastern time and was 2002 four years ago.

"Do you want to do prayer?" I ask, "or do you want to talk about numbers?"

"PRAYER!" he answers in the Lois voice.

"Let's try again, then. Pick a word."

Still with the numbers, times, dates, I lose it.

"I'LL DO PRAYER WITH YOU WHEN YOUR PATCH KICKS IN!" I shout. (He wears Daytrana, the best invention since sliced bread, a slow and steady bloodstream entering med. for ADHD, way better than any oral stimulants we've tried.)

Meanwhile, my husband is off in another part of the house, trying to prepare himself mentally for his day. Yesterday at prayer time we read from Warriors of the Light, that if you cannot quiet the mind enough to meditate, just repeat one word over and over again, until that word becomes your meditation.

He is in his chair, eyes closed, "love, love, love, love,", trying to find his groove and get into the now.

Rojo, still at the prayer table, finds his favorite angel word-of-the-day, walks into the room where his daddy is, lifts up Daddy's shirt, places the word on his chest, and says, "Here you go. Let this kick in."

The word? Rojo's favorite? The one he draws "randomly" day, after day, after day, no matter where we try to hide it in the stack of 50?

"love"

Not a bruise on 'em!
posted by Carrie Wilson Link at 7:49 AM