Just like Jesus

This morning, after my husband and daughter left, I went back to bed. Raise your hand if you've ever done this/ever wanted to do this/do this all the time/any of the above but would never cop to it. So shoot me.

The thrill of closing the curtains, pulling up the covers, disappearing back down the rabbit hole. I think I'm finally hip to one of my mother's coping mechanisms: having gotten her family out the door each morning, she crawled back in the sack for a few more winks before donning her domestic dervish suit. My mother was from the last generation of women who were, for the most part, Housewives. Check it out: They were married to their houses.

I've been a contemporary version of that for several years, i.e., Stay-At-Home-Mom. Oh pass the barf bag, pull-ease. Which of those labels sounds less condescending? I prefer the former, but face it, they both suck. How's about, She-Who-Has-Temporarily-Lost-Her-Moccasins. Or maybe, Woman-on-the-Verge-of-Subdividing. Or better yet, Laid Off-Has Been-of-Certain Age-Treading-Water.

But, alert the media! All that's coming to a blinding halt, when I start my new job in September. As I said to a friend the other evening, "Can a person who basically hates kids find success as a preschool teacher?"

Clarification: It's other people's kids I basically hate. Besides, how many dentists really like looking into people's mouths?

For some reason unknown to man nor beast, I seem to have a way with children (with the exception of my own child). The neighborhood I grew up in was crawling with the things, it being the dawn of the Baby Boom, and they tended to follow yours truly around like I was the Pied Piper. No matter I was famous for knuckle-biting ghost stories which woke the little maniacs screaming in the night so that their mothers were forced to call my mother and demand a cease-and-desist. No matter my favorite backyard group games were Witch and Mental Man and Kidnap-and-Murder. No matter I regularly pretended to fall asleep and wake up as a zombie or a cannibal. The little darlings kept coming back for more, hanging on my every nuance, gathering around outside our door like demented woodticks.

Now I'm about to put this, er, gift to good use, providing it's still operational. Not to worry. I won't be locking any of my charges in the broom closet and Wooooo!-ing through the keyhole if they misbehave. I mean, I have evolved over the years. Into what, I'm not sure. Suffice to say my days of spiking KoolAid with Tabasco are over.

Last night, in the wee hours, I woke screaming with new-job-angst. Okay, not screaming exactly. But 3:15 became 5:07 became 6:33, and still I stared into the abyss. So this morning I indulged myself and got back on the Dreamland Express. And now I've risen again, just like Jesus, and am taking stock.

The house is quiet (its other human inhabitants having gone camping). There's that feeling of things seeming less overwhelming in the morning...okay, afternoon. And, I'm telling myself, with enough coffee it will all work out. My daughter will adjust to middle school, and so will the rest of the planet. My husband will adjust to the demise of golf season. I will adjust to the return of steady employment.

In regards to which, I've been brainstorming ideas for getting and keeping the younger set's attention. Raise your hand if you have any suggestions. Come to think of it, what would Jesus do? Rumor has it he also had a way with kids. Might be something there. I'll have to sleep on it.