Cloudy with a Chance of Cinnamon Rolls

It's Saturday. 

It's overcast.

It's Daylight Savings Time.

All of that means a lazy morning for me and mom.  I woke up early, but knew the darkness of the morning would keep her happily in bed for an hour or so.  I also had Grands Cinnamon rolls in the fridge.  I am the goddess of price-matching, after all (4 rolls for $5 - can't beat that with a stick, as mom used to say!) 

So, in honor of the perfectly overcast, no-thought-needed-to-prepare-breakfast morning, I spent 20 minutes with Ann Voskamp's blog and 20 minutes with some gentle yoga before I faced the day.

It had all the quirks that come from caring for someone with Alzheimer's.  The questions that don't need to be answered, but that she needs to say out loud.  The sounds she makes in hopes of me coming to her side to reinforce that she is doing things right.  The 3-5 questions concerning her clothes for the day.  The sigh that comes each time she has to bend over to tie her shoe.  The grumbled argument she has with her comforter each day as she struggles to make her own bed.  And the counting of the morning pills before she sits down at the table.

But today - well-rested and in a kitchen filled with the smell of cinnamon rolls - I captured joy.

Best of all - mom captured joy this morning too!  In each and every bite of her rolls.  In every lick of her finger.  In the scraping and wiping clean of her plate of every last bit of icing.  In words that hinted at memories of cinnamon roll breakfasts from a long time ago. 

And in her coffee.  Mom makes those people in Seattle look like hobbyists compared to her love and passion for coffee.  Nothing fancy or doctored up.  Coffee.  Dark or Italian Roast Coffee. 

I get to see that coffee joy at least twice a day and it makes me feel so good to know that I can help facilitate that for her.  But this morning - quadruple that with a warm plate of cinnamon rolls.

It wasn't lasting, but it was perfect.  It was childlike.  There were no worries for those few minutes.  Nothing forgotten.  No missing words.  No anxious glances.  Just coffee and cinnamon rolls and sticky fingers and contentment.