Sitting here in my pajamas

...a break in the morning routine.

Scott's school hosted an 'annual' K-1-2 "Space Out" sleepover. I would have been there too, waking up on the floor, trying to feed children

except

Gary's gone this week ( last week too with less than a 36 hour layover in the port of home between absences).

I had planned to endure a sleepover at the school, but Gary-in-Asia changed the dynamic. I'm not quite ready to leave Connor alone all night. And, it being a school night, it would be an imposition to ask one of his friends' parents if he could spend the night. (The devil on my shoulder whispering: "Do it! Find Connor a place for the night and don't chaperone the sleepover! Come on, you know you want to.")

Scott adamantly said if I wasn't staying he wasn't either. Then squirmed in the throes of dilemma: he could spend the night at the school, very cool and desirable, without me, or he could be home with me and miss the sleepover.

Those kind of choices really do suck, though, and I should have been more sympathetic to the emotional storms that accompanied his working it out. I do hate when two desirable options are on opposite sides of a choice, and each is accompanied by something not-desired.

It probably was actually a good learning experience and practice. He spent days trying to come up with ways that he could have both the sleepover, and me there.

He chose to stay. So for the price of a potluck dinner (lasagna) I assembled yesterday, the effort to pack, and a drive over to the school, I get to sit here in my pajamas this morning. Where I can be for another two hours if I so choose. When it's pick-up time for Scott. His school only goes for half-days on Fridays.

So I got a break from the usual morning routine of waking a reluctant boy (which is a focused effort, spread over 15-or 20 minutes of time while I accomplish the mini-goals that facilitate the getting out of the door), dressing myself with an eye on the clock, then herding him to the car and making the drive down the hill (the road under construction last week and this week) to park near the school, wade through the crush of children (why do they always congregate in doorways and narrow passage-ways?) to deliver him to class. Drive home, and get here about now.

I don't mind getting a free pass on all that today one little bit.