Sweet Morning

Ted flew to Chicago this morning. From there, he continues on to Dallas. He returns on Friday at some completely awful time like 11:31pm.

As Julie types this as 9:01pm on Monday evening, Joe is kicking the wall next to his bed, but generally, she thinks things have gone pretty well without Raleigh House's undisputed emotional anchor keep things, well, anchored around here. This morning, she pulled out of the garage with everyone in Bronzie, pressed, dressed, spic and span, with all the items needed for the day at 7:16am--one minute shy of goal time!

Julie got up not long after 5am when Ted left so that she could be entirely sorted and mis-en-placed for the day before the day really begins when the more benign, but no less unpredictable Pandora's box that is the bambini's room is opened. We have no less than six types of Cheerios in the Raleigh House pantry, five of which were on the table this morning. (The Raleigh House pantry is actually too small to contain all of the Cheerios we apparently require, and so Julie neglected to display the sixth box atop the fridge.) Joe requested "fru-tee" (initially without milk) in the big bowl, and "chocolate" (formerly, "brown"), with milk, and in the little bowl. (Yes, it's rather a bit of a production. Julie did chance--with suffering no ill-consequences--pre-pouring Our Hero's juice.) Clara had plain with bananas, and Julie, fru-tee, with milk from the start.

It was really all quite civilized and lovely. Clara began tamping her Cheerios and bananas down with her spoon into the milk after she saw Julie doing the same with her fru-tee. Near breakfast's end, Julie and Joe had this exchange while Clara was busy tamping mostly her milk down (down, milk, down!) and keeping a Cheerio stuck to her left cheek:

Julie (while gazing lovingly at Joe): "Sweet boy. . ."

Joe: "I'll eat you up!"

[beat]

Joe: "I love you so."

Fans of Where the Wild Things Are will recognize that Our Hero is parroting Max, the wild thing from that book. Julie could barely swallow her fru-tee between her sweet, wild thing to her left, and her sweet, and happily milk-sodden Birdie to her right.

(By the way, it is now 9:12pm, and all is quiet on the western front.)