The first week of school was a little out of control. That weird bubble in the kitchen ceiling finally turned into full-blown leak. After five years of having not a single mechanical issue with the Mini, the brake pads decided to give way on the way to drop-off. Iris, our usually bordering-on-bonkers Boston Terrier, was slinking around lethargically for days before ending up in the ER until midnight on Wednesday. (She’s fine.) To say nothing of the general first-week-of-school anxieties from the kids that the whole house ends up absorbing.
When I have weeks like this, I find myself spending increasing amounts of time in front of Command Central, the kitchen desk and bulletin board pictured above where all the family organizing happens, and where I can pretend to have some illusion of control. It’s where I keep the laptop, the class lists, the printed yahoo calendar, the birthday invitations, the soccer schedules, the specials schedules, the afterschool schedules, as well as a random mix of photos and souvenirs from all the action, so that every now and then I can step back and remind myself that all of this chaos adds up to happy chaos. (BTW, tagline on back of the cookbook: Life is not chaotic: It’s rich.) (more…)
