Let Loose and Dance, Mom

You can be sure that in this house, when mom’s stressed, everyone else is, too. Paper’s due tomorrow, the dishes are piled high, and there’s not enough coffee to fill my thirsty throat. I still can’t find the right person to interview for that project, and Charlie is getting his brown doggy hair all over the kitchen floor.

Travis makes me laugh and exaggerates my sour attitude with sarcasm.

Eliot whines more because, well, that’s what mom’s doing.

So this afternoon, we just need to dance.

Travis is gone to fill his students’ heads with wonderful things, empowering them to change the world. (I really love him.) Eliot’s eating blueberries and a “baked organic cheese & grain snack” that’s got him smiling.

So we turn on Pandora. First, the Lecrae station. A little headbanging and jiving, and we’re done.

Next, Gotye– that’s better. Now he’s hiding behind the curtain and laughing. Eating his puff off the floor and wiggling his little legs, clapping all the time.

The party’s just not quite right without his new dog– the plastic one that scoots and barks at him. We invite him into the kitchen, and Eliot’s in bear crawl position, bouncing his booty up and down.

I dance while I put away the dishes, he dances while he bangs on the refrigerator. Now it’s “Lights” by Ellie Goulding. Hands in the air. Celebrate something. Howl like the dogs do. It will make it more fun. And feel every beat.

We keep jamming. I can’t wash the dishes because I got a spray tan this afternoon (go ahead and laugh), but I can clean while I dance. Cleaning is sort of my hobby, my de-stresser. I wonder if Eliot will pick up the habit.

He watches me, wants to know when I’m smiling, when I’m glaring, frowning, worried and stuck in my own head and circumstance. I smile, he smiles. I dance, he dances, and the world appears right. It’s a piece of God in the brokenness, and it’s what I need. What we’ve always needed.

Maybe when he’s 11 he will pick up my habit of worry. He will be up until 12 trying to write a paper that he knows he will get an “A” on. I will teach him the lessons I’m still trying to learn at age 24 now, at age 35 then. But right now, the lesson for both of us is simple.

Let loose and dance.