I woke up with the alarm more easily than anticipated. Don't remember pressing snooze once, though. Rachel's first day back to school. I feel as though my vacation has come to an end as well, what with the sleeping in till 9:00 for two weeks. I know that waking up earlier feels better, but I needed the break from responsibility. Besides, the kids let me sleep in.

I meant to go to bed early last night, but stayed up watching a movie it appeared I'd like--Maria Full of Grace. What a downer. Great acting, neat story, totally depressing. Lately I've been considering that thoughts work like the rest of nature, with gravity pulling little thoughts towards big ones. A big, bad movie, for example, becomes me. I have to tell myself that just one big, positive thought can override the negative one and its posse, and that at any time I can make this happen. Immediately would be good. Infinitely would be great. What came to mind while feeling too sad and excited over the movie to sleep...

...Maria, 17, from Colombia, secretly decides to become a drug mule. She swallows 62 caplets of cocaine--caplets the size of two large grapes--while pregnant, while risking her life and her freedom. My stomach turned thinking about her stomach...

...was the lady who shaved a full beard. I met her yesterday at my meeting. Her complexion was so smooth, poor thing. No pores, just 5:00 shadow. She talked with her hand in front of her mouth. Long, decorated nails or bracelets served to pull my eyes away. I used what I saw to make myself feel better. Not better than her, better than my small-minded state. I laughed at myself because that afternoon I had nothing better to do than examine my flawless skin for the tiniest of imperfections, squeeze where possible, and walk around a guilt monster until knowing worse. I fell right to sleep.

~~~

Lloyd and Rachel are always up with the Sun. This morning I was right there pushing the Cheerios with bananas, adept at sleepily doling out the right milk to the right kid. The getting ready process went smoothly, without much coaching (I'm too much of a coach on the sidelines of this small house). Rachel was okay without her Strawberry Shortcake gloves. No problem getting Aaron to watch the boys while I was gone. Plenty of time to be mother/daughter on the way to the bus stop. Rachel stepped on cracks. We decided too late that we want to count our steps to see which route is quicker. And no, as usual, I was not going to play I Spy while moving.

We were either the first at the bus stop or school didn't start back until tomorrow...

It was nice having company on the walk home, for a change. She still remembers when I did this to her last year :)