January 30: Louis

My work days are often hectic. Here's a typical day in the life:

• I wake up to the same alarm clock I've had since I was 17. I am not a morning person.
• Get ready. 
• Wake Aria. Wake her again. Third time's a charm. 
• Tickle fest.
• Help Aria get ready. This includes no less than three reminders to brush her teeth or her hair. Broken. Record. 
• Make her breakfast. 
• While she’s eating breakfast, pack her school lunch (which I intended to pack the night before but forgot, again). Remind her to eat. I said eat. Please eat. 
• Make a cuppa to go (if I'm on top of things). These are good days when this bullet point happens. Good, good days.
• Throw everything together and rush her out the door (invariably singing Hit the Road Jack, unless it's super cold. Then it's Baby, It's Cold Outside). 
• Drop her at a friend’s home before school, leaving with a kissing hand. Do you know The Kissing Hand book? If you have kids or someone you just love being near, give it a read. It's lovely. 
• Buzz into the box (my work - where I drive over 10,000 speed bumps in the parking ramp which takes forever to navigate through). 
• Attend a bevy of meetings and do all that my job entails. Most days the pace is frantic enough that lunch is eaten at my desk while on a call. 
• Go over the 10,000 speed bumps in the parking ramp.  Rush to Aria. 
• Make dinner. 
• Write my blog. This bullet point makes me smile. It's kinda new.
• Eat dinner.
• Do dishes. 
• Get Aria bathed and help with her hair. It's a project. If you have a child with curly, snaggle-prone hair you understand that this is an effort. And not a fun one. We have a Knot Genie, people, and we use it well. Along with pounds of leave-in conditioners.
• Read stories.
• Get Aria a snack. She's a nighttime eater. Hobbits have elevenses. Aria has second dinner. I can fight it or I can fight her not sleeping as her stomach rumbles. No brainer.
• Give her her nightly massage (it’s hard to be Aria). 
• Put her to sleep. Yes, I snuggle her until she falls asleep often. Yes, I stare at her sleeping form. It's rare, precious time. Don't judge. 
• Do laundry / clean the house / sort the mail / yada yada. 
• Watch something on Netflix (while frolicking on the elliptical if I’m being disciplined). 
• Shower. 
• Read a book. 
• Crash.

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

I’m sure many of you can relate.

One of my very favorite things about this song is the pace it sets. Over three delicious minutes in, Louis starts singing. In a world that is all fast food and instant messaging, the fine art of intent, of slow delivery and letting something wash over us in its own time, is often lost on us. 

This song is like champagne. It makes me warm and turns my blood to honey. It slows my breathing. It’s intoxicating, and precisely what I need after a typical day in the life.

Take a deep breath. Give it a listen. Take another deep breath. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Oscar Peterson & Louis Armstrong - You Go To My Head