The First Home Study: A Comedy

Saturday morning at 10:00 a.m. We agreed to meet halfway, at a cafe in St. Charles.

It’s 35 minutes from our house, compensating for autumn rain and straggling road construction, we’d plan to leave at 9:00. Because that way we’d actually leave around 9:10, and arrive a few minutes early.

Man Cub had a sleepover at Nana’s house the night before, so he could spend the morning with her and the kitties.

I didn’t set an alarm, because on the laziest mornings I can hardly stay in bed past 7:30. I just can’t get comfortable past 7:30 a.m. for some reason.

And with only two people in our bed, we were sure to sleep like the dead. We’d probably wake up even earlier – either in sudden alarm at the absence of a four-year-old or from an abundance of good sleep.

And we did.

At 7:00, Timothy rolled over and asked if it was hailing. We listened to the morning rain and talked about the boy we were missing. A faint, gray glow was beginning to poke through the window blinds to stripe the floor.

At 8:00, I checked the time on my phone. I didn’t even know I’d fallen asleep. I counted minutes. If I got up now I could shower … but really … I hadn’t showered until noon the day before. And my pillow was so comfy. I wasn’t even 24 hours from my last shampoo. I’d be fine. I just wanted to stretch in the sheets and listen to the drizzle on the window.

And then my phone emitted a very gentle ping. 

“Who is texting you?”

I rolled over to squint at my phone. Had I been asleep again? Or just listening? I couldn’t really tell.

OHMYGAWDITS9:30ITS9:30GETUPGETUPITS9:30HOWDIDTHISHAPPEN?!HOWISIT9:30?!

We erupted out of the bed. Flew past each other into bathrooms and closets and clothes. Grabbed phones and accordion folders and bags and were out the door in about 7 minutes, trying to find emails and GPS apps and addresses and phone numbers. Texting and emailing and apologizing and praying. Not the first impression I wanted to make.

The social worker texted back and said our being 10 minutes late wasn’t a problem, and where she was sitting in the cafe … but I didn’t get it because my phone was the GPS.

So when we got there, we walked in and scanned the tables. A middle-aged woman was sitting near the door, alone, with a tablet and keyboard on the table in front of her. She looked up and met my eye, so I walked over and smiled, “Are you Meredith?”

“Um …” She looked back and forth between Husband and I, as though she were deciding, “No. Sorry.”

Awkward.

We walked around to the other side of the room and found her, and the rest of the morning was fine. We drank coffee, and counted the number of times a barista brought the wrong food order to our table, and talked about … everything.

And we scheduled the other two appointments: one for Monday evening and one for the following Sunday afternoon.

So the paperchase has a soft finish line and the pressure is on.

Movie Night Fundraiser: Save the Date

It’s time to par-tay! Save the evening of Saturday, December 9 for us, if you’re local. We’re going to borrow the cafe at Watershed Church for a movie, some fun treats, and some super cool raffle prizes.

(And if you’re local and you want to help out, let me know. Love to have some extra hands to help set up/clean up. And I’m talking to some people/small business owners about sponsoring raffle gifts.)