Molly in the Morning

Oh yes, all their kids are geniuses. No question. This one’s son is the best soccer player who ever played middle-school soccer. “You should see him use his head!!!” which is obviously always said out loud with not just one verbal exclamation point, but three. That one’s daughter is the best cheerleader who ever cheered for a varsity football team. “So personable! So popular!” (And when that one tells this story, she puts her hand over her mouth to make it seem as if she’s embarrassed to have to admit how awesome her not-so-awesome daughter is.) All of their unbelievably gorgeous and amazingly handsome children are so damn gifted and talented that—I swear to God someone really said this— “the coordinator of the district’s Gifted and Talented Program didn’t even have to ask us for an application. She just knew!” Imagine! She just knew!

Want more? Okay. Jillian, or Ashley, or Meredith, or whoever, is so popular because of her fantastic figure that boys “literally stand on their heads” to get a glimpse of her whenever she leaves the house in the morning.” That’s right, they “literally” stand on their heads. Take a walk down Jillian or Ashley or Meredith’s block and you’ll see a dozen pairs of legs sticking up in the air. Literally! Andrew, or maybe it was Scott, or Anthony, is so incredibly talented on stage that it won’t surprise his mother if Steven Spielberg comes to the last performance of Pippin at school to offer him the lead role in his next movie. Olivia—and there are at least a dozen Olivias, by the way—is such a wonderful singer that we’ll all probably hear her on the radio next year, right along with Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga. IQ scores? “Oh, my little Suzie doesn’t need to take a formal IQ test because everyone already knows how smart she is. She aces every test she ever takes.” I guess it doesn’t matter that Suzie and her mother probably don’t even have a clue what IQ stands for.  

Don’t you just love mothers today? 

I never speak much about my own daughter. Can I tell you a little bit about her? I mean, better late than never, right? 

Molly’s smart. Not genius smart, just smart smart. I have to get on her case every once in a while to study or to finish up a class project, but she always studies and she always finishes. I have no doubt that she’ll get into a good college. Not Harvard or Yale, but a good one. She’s an excellent gymnast. She’ll never make the Olympics—she doesn’t have the body or discipline for that—but it doesn’t matter. She enjoys the workouts and the competitions, and she’s proud of the two or three trophies she’s won over the years. My husband and I are proud, too. Molly plays the bassoon in the school band. Strange instrument, isn’t it?—but I’m told it’s very important to the band. She had a solo at the last concert, on a song called Liberty Waltz. It was good. The band instructor appreciates her dedication. He wrote something nice on the Liberty Waltz sheet music when Molly asked him to sign it for her after the last concert. I don’t remember what he wrote, and I don’t know what Molly did with the sheet music. But I remember being very impressed. Molly has no interest in sports (other than gymnastics). That’s fine with me. She’s busy enough. She helped build the set for Pippin at school and had a blast. She even made a few new friends, which is great because she’s always had a little trouble in that department. To tell you the truth, the set for Pippin was... well... let’s say it wasn’t Broadway. Which made me realize that our high school probably has a budget of about ten cents for its theater program. But that’s okay. Molly had fun. That’s what matters. Plus, it will be nice to be able to add set-building to the list of activities on her transcript for college. Her list won’t be a mile long, like Jillian’s or Andrew’s. But it will be fine. It’s gotten bigger only in the last year or so. But once again, better late than never. 

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I refuse to brag. But I do refuse to brag about every last thing Molly ever did or said in her life. If I want to say something nice about something she did or said, I do it without squeezing every last exaggerated detail out of it. What’s the point? So what if little Shawna has the world’s most gorgeous eyes? What does that mean in the grand scheme of things? You know what I like to brag about? I like to brag about the fact that Molly doesn’t always need me to wake her up in the morning to go to school. Now that’s something to be proud of!

Today’s a good example. When I woke up (late), I didn’t see Molly and I didn’t hear her, either, which meant that she had gotten herself up and out of the house by herself, and I didn’t have to pester her at all. And this despite the fact that she was up late last night doing homework after gymnastics practice, and despite the fact that she doesn’t like the chorus instructor who she has to see every morning even before homeroom starts, and despite the fact that she’s been dreading a biology test she has to take today. Despite all these frustrating things, she apparently woke herself up, got herself ready, and walked by herself to school. I smiled wider than I’ve smiled in a long, long time because I knew that she did all this entirely on her own. I’ll take honest smiling over fake bragging any day of the week. She wasn’t always like this. It’s a wonderful trait that developed only recently. But if you’ll forgive the repetition, better late than never. 

There was no time to brag this morning anyway. There were other important things I had to do. Like straighten up the house. You see, Molly and my husband make an absolute mess every morning. For one thing, they both have a terrible habit of throwing their wet towels behind the bathroom door, which is why the bathroom door is always two-thirds closed whenever I go in there to clean up after they’re gone. A mountain of wet towels! That’s why I always bump my left shoulder against the partially-closed door whenever I try to squeeze through to get inside. That’s why my shoulder is always black and blue. That’s my legacy. The black-and-blue-shouldered mom. 

On my way to the bathroom, I decided to count my blessings. Things were good (despite the sore shoulder). My husband likes his job and earns a good salary. Molly’s a great kid. I even got to sleep late this morning. So instead of cleaning the bathroom, I went downstairs to the kitchen and grabbed a cinnamon donut, which in essence is like having a piece of cake for breakfast. I poured myself an extra-large cup of coffee and put in more French vanilla cream than usual. I took the donut and the coffee into the den and watched The Real Housewives of New Jersey, even though I would never admit that to anyone. I sat and watched and drank my coffee and ate my donut. I felt I deserved it all. I mean, when do I indulge? Maybe three or four times a year, at most. Finally, after my decadent little culinary and televised treats, I felt relax enough to go upstairs to attack the messy bathroom. I pushed the bathroom door open to scrunch the wet towels behind it into a corner. They’re easier to pick up that way. But the door hardly budged. It moved just a fraction of an inch. So I pushed harder. The door still didn’t move. So I sucked in my belly (and cursed the donut at the same time) and squeezed through the small opening. To my surprise, I saw that the wet towels were already up on the sink. And behind the bathroom door, on the floor, was Molly, fast asleep.