If I was smart, I would have pre-set the coffee for the night before. It took me several days at the Del Bueno household to remember this trick from my early college years. Downstairs, I spring into action. Set out two kid’s cereal bowls, one child spoon, one adult spoon. I make an educated guess as to what cereal they will want for breakfast and set it, along with the milk on the counter. Everything is ready to go. I make sure that the set up is in the correct seats, because all hell will break loose at the kitchen table if the seating chart gets messed up and Arden has to sit in Lily’s seat or vice versa. It sounds silly, it sounds trite, and you are shaking your head over something so trivial. But remember back to your childhood. If you had siblings, you went through the same thing. I know I did. Ever rooted in tradition, my little brother still likes to mess up how we sit as a famiglia when we come together for the rare dinner.

I hear thumping down the stairs. The 63 pound yellow lab, who I joke (when the kids are not around, or course), is the biggest, dumbest lab I have ever seen, is awake and demands attention in the form of love and hugs and food. Most of the adults in the house know I say this in jest. I am a true animal lover. Careening towards the door like a bull in china shop, she demands (not begs, demands) to be let out. One she is done, I try and get her sit calmly…who am I kidding, I try to get her to sit at all, as I wipe her paws. She races towards her food as if she has just come from a famine. I guess several hours would be a famine for this big lovable lab. Right now we have abandoned ‘sit’ and are working on not jumping. If I time it right, I can get the dog settled (I laugh as I type settled) before I hear the pitter patter of the girls coming downstairs for breakfast. Lily is ready for school. Arden, her hair sticking up every which way, goes to school later. If I was her older sibling, I would be eternally resentful. I don’t know how Lily feels. Maybe she doesn’t value sleep like I do. Cereal is poured, silliness abounds. It took me a while to get used to one, eating breakfast; two, eating with 2 kids. They eat when they are hungry and stop when they are full. I had to be a member of the ‘clean plate club’ when I was their age, so seeing kids leave food on the plate and it being acceptable is something completely foreign to me. I also like calmness and order, since that’s the way it was in my house growing up. As anyone who has kids or has spent any significant amount of time with kids knows, calmness and order generally takes a gentle soar out the window when you have children in your presence. It was something I had to readily adapt to, and still am.

I find myself craving solace, quiet, the peace that comes with all the family members doing their separate things at all times, but then I quickly remember that I love Arden’s contagious smile, her braids that she requests from me each morning (with the hair ties matching her outfit. major little diva), wildly flying as she streaks to her next activity, ever a ball of energy. How Lily will come home from school and briefly climb in my lap and tell me about school and how, despite the almost 20 year age difference, we can geek out over books together. Holed up in the story room, we both eagerly anticipate the next chapter, and delight when she pronounces a tough word and reads with a fluidity generally reserved for a girl years older. She was recently up in my room, perusing my bookshelves, and picked up my dog eared copy of DFW’s ‘Infinite Jest.’ Mispronouncing the title and then flopping back on my bed in a fit of hysterical laughter only fit for a first grader, she looks at me and with the most serious face says, “Nikki, I am going to read InifiniJest as my next book. But you might need to help me with the big words, k?” How could you not love that?  I know I do.