4th
Patience is for doctors.
I got him to the bus on time again. SCORE.
When your oldest of three children can’t make it through a sequence of elemental steps in a simple process like Get Dressed for School without a dizzying amount of routine assistance — a guided tour to the bathroom (including a prompt to lift the seat, a prompt to clean up the pee that missed the toilet, a prompt to flush, a prompt to close the lid, a prompt to flush, a prompt to wash hands, a prompt to use soap, a prompt to rehang the hand towel, a prompt to turn off the lights), progress checks, younger-brother’s-too-small-pants checks, inside-out shirt checks, backwards pants checks, no-socks checks, shoes-on-the-wrong-feet checks, pants-before-shoes reminder - plus an endless list of one-offs I’m hard pressed to remember, let alone anticipate, from day to day - and you go through this every single morning for 7 years; and this is just one of countless tiny daily sequences most of us perform automatically and hardly even think about; and your child remains incapable of assimilating any routine more complex than swallowing a sip of water; well — it’s not patience that keeps you going.
It’s the absolute, unyielding dearth of viable alternatives.
//inhale exhale
Okay, so what’s today - Sexy Sex Thursday or something?
