A GOOD MONDAY

Sunrise after the rain…

‘Can we make cookies’, he texted after school.

‘Yes. I almost made them today’, I replied. My son wanted to make chocolate chip cookies this past weekend, but somehow other things took precedence. I had intended to make them today before he got home, but was glad I waited.

‘Okay ty’, he texted back. And then he asked me ‘How was ur day’ and let me know that he was almost home.

‘It was good, thank you’, I answered. ‘How was yours?’

‘Good realllly tired’, he replied with two extra ‘l’s to emphasize just how incredibly tired he was.

He immediately went to his room to change and to lay down for a while, asking me to wake him up when the melted butter has cooled enough for him to make the cookies.

In the meantime, I typed up the slightly modified version of my original chocolate chip cookies and attached it to a magnetic clip on the fridge for my son to reference. I wanted him to see if my directions were clear enough for anyone to read, as many times I simply scribble down the ingredients without much guidance as to how to go about assembling those ingredients.

After I typed up the recipe, I continued with my travel research. The one which was taking me in many different directions as I realised I was losing track of the true goal of getting away. I tried to remember the lessons I have learned from the past two trips with my children this summer. Of overscheduling our days and not staying in one place long enough to enjoy our time together. Something which made us all very tired.

Sometimes we have a tendency to want to fit in as much as possible into a trip abroad as we fear that if we don’t, we have not used our time away wisely. But there is such thing as too much when it comes to travelling. This time, I decided I needed to reign in the urge to move from place to place and to choose fewer destinations with a longer stay at each place, if possible.

I called out to my son to have him start making the cookies. He did not seem to hear me, so I called out his name again. Nothing. I knocked on his door, but there was not the usual answer I get. So, I went into his room and saw that he was asleep. He really was very tired. But he got up and went into the kitchen and began to measure the dry ingredients in one bowl.

In the other larger bowl, he mixed the sugars with the melted butter, eggs, and vanilla bean paste. Then he added the dry ingredients to the larger bowl, mixed them all together, and proceeded to taste the dough. Something I remember doing as a child as well. But this recipe does not make too many cookies, so I was worried that we would not get to taste much of the finished product.

After he mixed everything, he placed eight mounds of dough onto the cookies sheet and put it in the oven and set a timer for 12 minutes. He went to lay down again and I wrapped the remaining dough and put it in the fridge for baking fresh cookies tomorrow after school.

My son clearly needed more sleep as he continued to lay in his bed after I took the cookies out of the oven and even after he stated he would be out by the table in five minutes. Many minutes passed and then it was dinnertime. The last of the vegetable soup and the salad kit with avocado cilantro dressing. I knocked on his door again and had to go in when he did not respond.

‘Good morning’, I heard him repeat a few times, dazed and confused.

‘It’s not morning’, I stated whilst talking on the phone with my middle daughter who called to talk to me and tell me how she also hates school and was also really tired.

My son returned to bed after dinner and I continued to talk with my daughter as I sat at my desk and glanced at Google Flights, out of curiosity. I checked the section with the price history graph and noticed a sharp drop in prices for one direction of the flights I needed. It was half the price it was this morning so when I caught myself doing the usual thinking/overthinking, I decided it was time to take action. Seeing how this price was for travel two days prior to my original plans, I knew that I had to scrap all of the other stays and ideas I had. But it would all work out in the end.

As the day came to an end, I thought how not all Mondays are bad. How this was a good Monday, which started with a gentle rainfall. A good start to the week. I reflected on how grateful I am that my children chose to talk with me today. That I get to communicate with them and get to be their mother.