Of course it was there.
I placed it where it could be found in the morning.
Then I returned to the living room, plugged in my phone with the recovered charger, and sat down again.
My book was waiting.
The house was quiet.
For almost six whole minutes, nothing happened.
It felt luxurious.
Then someone called from the hallway.
“I need water!”
I closed the book.
There it was.
Hard mode.
Not because every moment was profound.
Not because frustration secretly meant joy.
And certainly not because parents were supposed to enjoy every interruption.
Some of them were simply annoying.
Some days were exhausting for no meaningful reason at all.
But that was the strange truth of the life I had chosen.
Everything that once took five minutes now seemed to require strategy, patience, negotiation, snacks, backup snacks, and occasionally an audience.
The work was bigger because the life was fuller.
The house was louder because more people were living in it.
The schedule was harder because more needs had been added to it.
And every ordinary task now carried several small humans through it with me.
I got the water.
I found the missing blanket on the way.
I returned one toy to a bedroom.
I turned off a light someone had left on.
Then I finally sat down again beside my cold cup of tea.
Before kids, I might have called the day unremarkable.
After kids, I knew better.
We had found the shoe.
We had bought the milk.
We had survived dinner.
Everyone was home.
Everyone was safe.
And tomorrow, somehow, we would do the whole impossible collection of tiny ordinary things again.
