"Enjoy your breakfast"

...She said as she handed me my change. It was 9:24am. Perhaps to her, I was a woman of leisure, coming in after a relaxing sleep-in to take a meal. I was smiling, but it was not for a carefree morning. It was because I was alone. There were no children wanting a piece of me, no disasters waiting to happen, just free space to catch up on my work. I had in fact woken a clear four hours beforehand. Tessa had woken up with a cry, as she had gone down the night before. She'd just had her (live) measles injection, and a hep B booster. That's what I attribute the night-time, hour-long tantrum to, anyway. The night had been further punctuated with text messages from friends who are clearly not in the baby stage anymore. Until I put my phone on silent mode. So I had given Tessa a bottle, and despite all of my will telling me to return to bed after she returned to hers, I went out for a walk. I desperately needed to get back into my routine. Later, I had battled to get Emily to eat her breakfast quickly enough so that we could leave for school. I had then helped in Emily's classroom, eagerly encouraging 4-year-olds to read the 6 page book that had a total of 8 vocabluary items. Some got it, some clearly still didn't. And then I had walked in the hot sun down the road to the only place open at this hour of the day - the Philippines still has a weird Spanish timetable, where shops don't open till at least 10am.

Officially, I was stranded without the car, as it was our restricted day. Unofficially, I was rejoicing that I had an excuse to be alone with my computer for a couple hours in a comfortable chair with cool aircon that I was not paying for. I smiled back at the cashier as I inhaled my latte and gratefully received my muffin. Breakfast it was not, but a good morning it was.