Yesterday Huck came home from school in a very cheerful, energetic mood.  He changed into his jammies and immediately began making up experiments at the kitchen sink, loudly chattering about everything he was discovering.  After about a half hour of this he went into his room and announced he was all done with his science work.  I peeked into the kitchen and made a discovery of my own: the sink and counter top were completely trashed with all his messy science materials.  I then announced that it was time to clean up after himself, and for the next ten minutes I was both entertained and mortified by the creature that Huck became.  He insisted he was too tired from all his work at school.  When that didn’t work he began sobbing uncontrollably.  When that didn’t work he literally made himself fall from his step stool in slow motion onto the hard kitchen floor as if he was collapsing from exhaustion.  It was actually a brilliant, if overdone, performance, and at one point I gave him some polite applause.  Finally I threatened, “I guess you don’t want to do science experiments at the sink anymore,” which prompted a quick cleanup job complete with loud yelling and crying.  I sent him to his room to rest, since he was so tired and all, and after a time-out and a long discussion, he finally admitted he might have overreacted.  Later he even confessed to lying about his exhausted condition and later still he laughed at how ridiculous he was, once again proving we’re related. 

The funny thing is, I know the frustration Huck feels.  These days I’m full of frustration as I wait for things to happen.  I’m waiting for a new apartment,  I’m waiting for wonderful ideas to write about, I’m waiting for exciting things to start happening with our movie, I’m waiting for our building’s elevators to both work again, I’m waiting to hear from the New York Fringe Festival regarding the play we wrote, I’m waiting for my piece to be published in Scholastic Action Magazine, I’m waiting to stop having nightmares over Waiting for Superman, I’m waiting for Superman, and most of all I’m waiting for the green leaves to come back and the temperatures to rise so I can spend most of the day wearing flip flops in the sunshine.

I’m so sick of waiting.  I too just want the fun stuff.  I don’t want the mess, I don’t want the cleanup, I don’t want the wait.  Somewhere deep inside I know there’s a season for everything, including a time to have the blahs, but while in the midst of them I sometimes want to respond the way Huck did yesterday.  Aware that it’s more than the situation calls for, I just want a nice old fashioned temper tantrum.

And then I’ll go back to waiting.