The clock read 5:48 a.m. My alarm would remain silent for another forty-five minutes, but I couldn’t sleep. I was excited, though not nervous. Okay, I was a little nervous. I hadn’t started a new job in a long time. I’d been on my own for years, so playing well with others might take some extra effort. Otherwise, I was eager to get going.
I had found the perfect job. I hadn’t known it was perfect for me until a colleague suggested that I apply. For years, I’d been trying to convince myself that flying solo as a psychologist in private practice was what God wanted me to do. Over the last ten years, however, I discovered a joy for teaching and solving administrative problems. God had to smack me around a little to get me to admit this, but once I did, everything started to make sense. My new job also imparted a distinguished title and credibility with my colleagues. Though I had never asked for it or expected it, I welcomed the respect that came with my new position. All of my training, experience, and accomplishments had led to this new existential dawn. I had discovered my ultimate purpose, the Great Thing I was born to do.
I lay in bed smiling, waiting for the sun to rise on the first day of the rest of my life. Then I had to go to the bathroom.
On my way to the toilet, I heard miniature footsteps in the hallway. A voice whispered, “Shh! Daddy’s coming and it’s not the seven yet.” The sound of galloping, socked feet scampered away down the hall.
Our quadruplets (all natural, so step off, octo-haters) knew that they weren’t supposed to leave their bedrooms until seven a.m. When “the seven” is the first number on the big digital clocks in their rooms, they’re free to invade our bedroom and pounce with impunity on the prone bodies of their parents. Before “the seven,” they risk running afoul of their father’s not-a-morning-person grumpiness. This morning, however, new job jitters had me wide awake. I decided to burn off some adrenaline with a little mischief.
I dashed into the hallway and shouted, “I hear a bunch of mice!” Four-year-old squeals came in reply. This was the cue for daddy to pretend to be a monster hungry for a breakfast of mice.
My daughter Emma ran up to me. “No, daddy,” she said. “You be a nice dragon and we’re going to be cats.”
“Um, okay.”
Hayley chimed in with a suggestion. “Pull your shirt up over your head so you look like a nice dragon.”
In the four-year-old mind, such things make perfect sense. I complied, pulling the back of my t-shirt collar over the back of my head. I looked more like a frightened turtle than a nice dragon.
“Now get down on the ground like us,” said Ella, crawling on all fours. Though my back would not forgive me for it later, I got down on my hands and knees.
“Now,” Emma announced, “you have to run from the kitties or we’re going to scratch you.” With that, she and her sisters started to meow and crawl after me. Squeaking down the hallway on my hands and knees, clad only boxers and a t-shirt pulled over my head—not what I imagined an accomplished psychologist doing before 6 a.m. on the first day of his distinguished new career.
My feline pursuers were about to capture me when I heard a loud thud followed by footsteps that sounded like hammers. Jordan, my cinder block of a son, had jumped out of bed and was on his way to join the fun.
He rounded the corner and, without tossing me so much as a “good morning,” pounced on me. We’re talking airborne professional wrestling move. I spun around caught him in mid-air. I tickled until I heard yowling, and then rolled him into the girls. They regrouped in seconds and charged, more like wolf-pups than bad kitties. I couldn’t evade the onslaught, so I rolled onto my back and waited.
