Working So Hard

I knew it wasn't going to be an easy feat getting the kids together this morning so I could get Heath to preschool by 9am. After a two week Holiday break, we were a little out of practice getting up at 'em. So I was totally prepared for, I don't want to go to school, when I tried to sneak a t-shirt over his head, while shoving a mini-waffle into his palm. For some reason I thought I could get him fed, dressed and into the car without him realizing what was happening until we pulled into the school parking lot.

Magically, and through no reasoning, cajoling or trickery of my own, something must've clicked in Heath's mind, because he said, I need to get back to school. I got work to do.

And just like that, he dressed himself, happily chowed down an additional waffle and banana, and even put on his Fire Fighter boots without having to be told multiple times then thrown in the car without shoes, because it's growing later and later.

I got him strapped into his carseat while he rattled off his work plans for the day, including various classmates he planned to work with. Maybe I'll get the digger and go to the landfill. He looked over at Stella and said, I gotta go to school, Gigs. I got work to do.

I am not entirely sure how Heath's "working" obsession started. I've occasionally wondered if it blossomed when I was pregnant with him during the time period I, for some unknown reason, listened to Workingman's Dead on my iPod over and over. I've been balling a shiny black steel jack-hammer/Been chipping up rocks for the great highway. Maybe the messages of the working man's plight traveled from my headphones down to his tiny, newly formed ear buds. Now I don't know but I've been told/If the horse don't pull you got to carry the load. Of course, Mark's in the construction business so it's more likely that household Nextel conversations riddled with early start times and pulling cans with trucks and landfill dumpings talk have been a strong influence.

Heath was right; he had a lot of work to do today at school. As soon as we got to the playground, despite the brrr chilly start to the morning, he was off and running with a soccer ball. He kicked it back and forth a couple of times with a friend, then took a flying leap into a leaf pile.

Stella and I are going to go, I said, thinking we might get a bit of a protest.

Bye, mom, I got work to do. He couldn't even look up from his rake.

I walked back to the car, feeling so pleased that he was such a hard little worker, really enjoying his preschool experience. Thinking about him kicking the soccer ball, I couldn't help but wonder, if he continues his hard work ethics and sporty ways, maybe he'll have a hard choice to make when he gets full academic and athletic scholarships to Chapel Hill, Duke, and Stanford. Of course, I'd really want him to go to Chapel Hill, and it would be really hard for him to be on the other side of the country if he chose Stanford, but we would just have to make sure we could get out there as often as possible. But who knows where Stella will be in school. I mean, she's really taken to that Doctor's kit my parents gave her for Christmas, knows exactly what to do with the blood pressure cuff and everything, so she could be at Yale and Heath could be in California and...

...and then I remembered that Heath hadn't pooped before he left for school. Hopefully he will stop his hard work and go, because I'm not sure if he has an extra pair of pants in his cubby.