Mind Body Mama: Launching the War Ship

Last Friday I hosted my Gratitude and Abundance coffee klatch. Karen and I got together just before the party to discuss a homily she’s writing. When Birth Pie arrived it was clear we had been discussing church business.

“What is this committee you two are on?” asked Birth Pie suspiciously.

“It’s the Worship Committee” Karen told her.

“What do you do?”

“Well, it used to be called the Religious Services Committee, but that seemed too non-profity and administrative, so we changed the name,” my honey-haired Buddhist friend earnestly explained. “We are responsible for creating the experience of worship.”

“Oh, ‘worship’!” exclaimed Birth Pie. (Her father is a UCC minister, after all.) “I thought you said ‘War Ship.’”

Considering the gruesome torture aspects of the Easter myth perhaps War Ship isn’t too far off. And sometimes I do think our progressive, intellectual faith could benefit from a little more military discipline and a little less kumbaya. I feel certain the pot lucks at West Point are better organized than ours.

Our family’s Easter tradition is to host Dusty and Hyacinth for a mid-day egg hunt and festive repast. As it is also our tradition to attend Easter Sunday worship, the morning is fairly full. Recent Easters have been enhanced by Small projectile-vomiting and Sweetiebabyhoneylicious being confined to bed by her Rheumatoid Arthritis. So I had high hopes this year when it looked like no one would be ill or incapacitated.

The three of us bounded out of bed at 6am in full-on attack mode. Our mission, and we were going to accept it: to prepare a complete Easter brunch and beat the downstairs of the house into some semblance of clean in time to get Small to choir practice by 9:15 am.

I took on the roles of Commander, Chef and Cheerleader. “We’re going to cook! We’re going to clean! Let’s go Team Easter!”

“What’s the name of the other team?” asked Small, eyeing her Spider magazine longingly.

“There is no other team!” I intoned in the voice of authority.

A bleary-eyed Sweetiebabyhoneylicious settled herself in front of the computer.

“She’s not on Team Easter,” noted Small. “She’s on Team Facebook.”

Somehow we pulled it together. We made hash. We made sticky buns. We made Bloody Marys, and I didn’t even drink any. We tidied, we decorated, we washed dishes, we ate breakfast. And then suddenly it was fifteen-minutes-to-go time and we were all still dirty and in our pajamas.

Which is how we ended up in the bathroom enjoying one another’s company through our morning ablutions.

Having Small join me for my bathroom rituals is not my favorite thing. The previous morning she had this to say about my makeup routine:

“What is that stuff? It’s smeary.”

I told her it was to cover the circles under my eyes.

“It makes it less purple under your eyes,” she agreed. “Not a lot less purple, but a little less purple.”

Despite the 40 degree weather and horrifically cold wind, I was determined to wear a spring dress to church. Unfortunately that necessitated shaving my legs in the company of my family. As I pushed the shower curtain aside to lather up my right leg, Small lost all focus on oral hygiene.

“What are you doing?”

Sweetiebabyhoneylicious attempted to maintain protocol: “Don’t worry about what Mama’s doing, worry about what you’re doing.”

A dismal thought occurred to me. It is entirely possible that I have not shaved my legs in over six years. Time gets away from you when you have a small child.

“Mama’s shaving her legs” explained Sweetiebabyhoneylicious, trying to get back to the task at hand.

“What is shaving?” asked Small.

“Removing the hair on her legs.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Good question,” said Sweetiebabyhoneylicious, waving the neglected toothbrush.

“Fashion,” said Mama with grim determination.

With seven minutes to go the whole family stumbled out of the bathroom and into the master bedroom. Small has taken lessons from the cat to employ when we’re running late. Like the VISA card, she’s every where I want to be. She weaves in front of me as I walk. She intuits telepathically where I’m about to head next and gets there first. With brilliant athletic instincts she’s able to step into my path wherever I turn.

As closely guarded as any WNBA champion, I dug in the bottom of the closet for the pantyhose collection last accessed in 2001. With her breath hot upon me I tunneled through the laundry to locate clean panties. As I charged for the mirror like Lisa Leslie, my three-foot nemesis drew the foul. When she made her move I straight-armed her back across the room.

“You pushed me!” came the indignant cry.

My denial was shameless, if undermined by giggles. “No I didn’t. Pushing is rude. Mamas don’t push their kids.”

“You’ve pushed me before!” Small countered, although she was already falling into my laughter. “You’ve even pushed me today!”

The ref, aka Sweetiebabyhoneylicious, broke up the scuffle. Sweaters, earrings and mary janes were found. Dress coats were donned and dress up purses were filled. We fell into the car with time to spare. War Ship indeed.