My 8:00am alarm goes off. It’s Jake doing star jumps in the room above me. Sounds like someone’s tearing the ceiling down. I lie and wonder if anyone’s put the kettle on yet. I open my door. Dad would’ve been awake for hours but no one else’s door is open yet. That means I’m doing the coffee round this morning.
Mum likes hers in the big red spotty mug. I choose the ‘tosser’ mug for Sam. I ponder between the ‘choose happy’ mug and the ‘J’ mug for Jake. I choose the ‘J’ one. Hopefully he still chooses happy today. Mine is the ‘we will always love each other’ mug, with the three children holding hands on it.
Mum likes hers strong enough that you can feel it zing in your eyebrows a bit, but the milk MUST go in first, she can tell if not. Sam’s is about 40% coffee, 60% milk and Jakes is whatever you give him, he’s easy like that. I use oat milk for mine , so I make it last. This is because I don’t mind the dregs of normal milk at the bottom of the frother, but everyone kicks off if there’s oat milk dregs in theirs.
I leave Jakes at the bottom of the stairs for when’s he’s finished doing his exorcist inspired workout. I pull up Sams blinds and leave it by his bed, I don’t need to say anything, the smell wakes him up. I’ll probably talk to him next around 1:00pm, at lunch. Mum is my favourite to wake up. She sleeps with pillows on her head and resembles a duvet cocoon. I tap her back and her face appears from the depths of her pillows, like a sleepy puppy. “Ah a vision!” she says every time.
I take my coffee outside, sit on the swinging chair and watch the puppies. My toes in the sun and my head in the shade. “I’m going to read my book, start my essay, think of a million dollar idea and go for a 10k run later” I tell myself hopefully.
I don’t do any of the above. I feel like a bit of failure at the end of the day, but then I remember, “at least I got everyone’s coffee order right this morning.”
It’s the small things right now, be kind to yourself.
Visuals by Ana Blumenkron
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