Here I am, writing, and it’s at 9am rather than at 9pm. Now to figure out is what to say? Let me start with something easy: I just finished my second cup of coffee. The mug now sits empty on the window sill. It’s a blue mug and beyond the pane you can see the lighter blue of the plumbagos against the green shrub. I love the word plumbagos. I love the word a bit more than I love the actual flowers. I mean, they’re pretty. They’re pretty until they drop off the scrub, do an army roll, find purchase on our Schnautzers’ fur and then make a new home on our carpets.

But back to the coffee …  I had my first cup with Jess. Usually we have it in bed together but today I slept in by mistake. Jess opened the door of the spare room at 7:30am with Kit on her hip. After I got my bearings, I made coffee and climbed the stairs with a tray: The French press, two mugs and a jug of milk (no rusks because we can’t risk rusks and our duvet with Kit). As I appeared with the tray at the top of the stairs, Jess joked, “What’s this bitch doing sleeping in on a Thursday when I did the night?” Apparently it was a NIGHT! I say apparently, because I was sleeping soundly downstairs. I won’t get into to it – the night, the nights – because it is seen as an invitation for sleep trainers to make suggestions and I’m really tired of suggestions. And I’m also just tired. What I will say, rather – and on a completely different topic – is that Jess and I find the word bitch funny no matter how many times we use it. Call it a flaw. I nearly wrote “call it a floor” there. Sherbs. Dire straits these are.

So, I “shared” the first cup of coffee with Jess while she got ready, and while she got ready and I sipped my coffee and Kit, Kit ran around the room picking things up and naming them; Kit, Kit sat on the potty for a second; Kit, Kit tried to reach the blind’s pull-up cord (which we have tucked into the trelladoor because sometimes Kit tries to loop it around her like a necklace and that makes us nervous).

My second cup of coffee accompanied me sitting down in our ‘office’. I write office like that because it used to be a cupboard. It’s small. It’s really beautiful though – the kind of space that makes you feel inspired to write. I need that. There are also the plumbagos. They’re pretty.

Anyway … by the time I poured my second cup of coffee, the coffee was cold. I had a choice: I could drink it cold or I could go downstairs and pop it in the microwave. The latter options seems the obvious choice but there’s a catch. Going downstairs means that Kit will see me and that often means Kit will want to come to me and want to be picked up and once my coffee is hot, Kit will cry when I have to hand her back to Magret and come back upstairs. She has some separation anixety. So there is a price of hot coffee. I took a sip of the cold coffee, testing it out, and then I decided that what this is about – this writing in the morning; this slowing down – is giving myself time for hot coffee.

The ‘mission’ for hot coffee proved to be fine. When I appeared Kit who sat at the dinning room table eating breakfast said ‘mom’ which made me grin because ‘mom’ is new. For some time we weren’t sure what to call ourselves. We landed on Mama for Jess; and Momo for me. Well, Momo evolved. At first we decided on Mom but a younger Kit didn’t seem to pick up on that so we went with Momo as a more distinct name from Mama. As of this week, Kit has all but dropped Mama and Momo, in favor of Mom. She calls Jess Mom. She calls me Mom. Not so complicated is it? We’re not sure what sparked the change but Jess thinks it was my mom visiting, and me saying, “mom”, a fair amount, and Kit deciding, hey, I like that better.

Okay. I have a lot more to write but I think I’ll stop there. Sometimes all this … the writing about my life … feels very indulgent. A break down of my two coffees this morning – riveting stuff. And sometimes the more confident side of me thinks, yes, this is important. I’m not sure why but it is.

On my daily musing, I so often write sleep well. Or goodnight. Or, I’m so tired. Today, I’m so glad to write, ‘Good morning’ instead. (Jess would maybe say, “Bitch, how can you be tired, you didn’t do the night?!”). She’s right there. I didn’t do the night and I had two cups of coffee (but you know that now). The day is young and I have energy.

Also, one last thing, yesterday I sat in a cafe called Starlings in Claremont, editing photographs from an elopement, eating poached eggs and drinking Rooibos tea, waiting for the groomers to be done with our dogs (where are the good groomers in town, I ask you? Really, I’m asking… where are they?) So I sat there a while, editing and ordering things occasionally to warrant my continued presence and I did a fair amount of eavesdropping, and one thing stands out to me. An older woman with her friend asked the waiter, “How wrappy is your wrap?” And then she laughed a little and said, “Do you know what I mean?”

No.

I don’t.

Do you?