Sunday's Ramblings

Before I had children, Sundays were largely spent in bed. I would forage forth long enough to drag back the newspaper, coffee, or food- but otherwise didn't get up. It was wonderful. In college days studying was included later in the afternoon.

Even after I had a husband (he was quickly enamored with this Sunday pattern) and years later a baby, we kept this habit. Our daughter was wholly breastfed until she was about six month old and was highly content to lounge around with the two people in the world that could still see her angel wings. She nuzzled, ate, slept, was changed, admired, played with, read to and sung to, all within the confines of a few square feet of space.

I can barely remember how that felt now. My children are all old enough to fend for themselves (youngest being almost 18 now) and are loathe to remove themselves from their own beds unless it is a weekday. The two youngest boys have expanded the "Sunday bed" thing to be the entire weekend. They are hard working, energetic people otherwise- as long as it is not a Sunday. I have noticed that the area surrounding their beds looks like the command post of a CEO or general in combat. Remote controls at finger's reach, books piled upon one another- spines splayed open to different points, cups and glasses perched precariously along table edges. It strikes me that they may keep this Sunday habit in their owns lives as well as they move forth and become adults. My two adult children seem to have.

My son, who turns 24 today, sometimes works on Sundays so that ruins the pattern for him. But on those Sundays, his wife of two years holds the vigil for them, along with their loving Zoie- my granddogghter. Sometimes they venture over to our house, but that's at dinnertime to await the additional arrival of my son.

My daughter( the baby I mentioned earlier) now has her own daughter. This baby came into the world in such a quick "whosh" that not only surprised her father and myself, but the doctor who couldn't get there in time. We had no time to change into scrubs, but instead stood there amazed at the miracle that my daughter was wholly orchestrating on her own, while we were wearing sweaters and jeans. We did have enough wits about us to help hold her knees and count to ten several times. I figured at that point this new baby of the family was a 100% high energy, no time to waste, kind of girl. No laying around in bed on Sundays. But she does follow in the line, after all. She sleeps peacefully in her own princess room (the pink and lavender one with the canopy of netted stars and satin comforter) until the sun is well up. Then she pads into her parent's room, gathering up as she moves along, coloring books and pencils of all colors, books to read, and the current favorite doll to snuggle. She does the same thing when spending the night here at my house. "PopPop" and I feel a small wiggle on the bed between us and there she is, sleepy eyed, not really awake yet. Along with her, a small pile of activities she plans to draw us into in a bit. On those occasions it's as if time has not only stood still, but has moved backwards, and I am once again back in the days of having a tiny person with wide eyed innocence and wonder guide me through my Sunday.