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...or maybe just insane observations. |
| My husband just called from work. "Today sucks," he says. "I hate my job." I used to have sympathy. When he had a bad day, I would go out of my way to make it better. I would fuss over him, settle him on the couch, bring him a cold beer and rub his neck before whipping up his favorite dinner and serving it to him by candlelight. Then we had children. "You think YOU'RE having a bad day?" I ask increduously. "Try having MY job!" "I have to go," he says quickly. "I love you." And he hangs up the phone. HE'S having a bad day? He goes to work in an air conditioned warehouse, sits at a desk, and gives people quotes on flooring, doors and windows. What can go wrong? My day has slightly different. I have made four bottles and filled the same sippy cup six time. I have changed diapers - some too soon, most too late, but not a single one at exactly the right time. I forgot the lyrics to Hush Little Baby and was forced to make up my own - hush little baby, don't you think all your crying is why mommy drinks. I then say I silent prayer that she won't remember this in therapy years later. I attempt to make lunch, but can't quite figure out how to make a PB&J with no bread - the current demand of my five year old. "But you like bread," I coax, completely baffled. "No I don't," he says. "Since when?" "Since yesterday." Duh. By two, I have banned one child from cartoons for the rest of his life and informed the other that if she doesn't stop crying, I am sending her to live with grandma. I call my mom to see if this is a possibility - it's not, but she does take time to laugh at me. My husband, apparently working very hard at his challenging job, calls to ask - I am not making this up - what's for dinner. "How should I know?" I snap. "How about a pork loin?" he asks, apparently not reading my mood correctly. "Sure," I say. "The pork loin is in the deep freeze. I'll just thaw it out using my Vulcan Death Ray, go back in time to yesterday so that I can let it marinade for twenty-four hours, the way you like, then pop it in the oven three hours ago so that it will be ready when you get home in an hour and a half." "Baby, you're the best," he says. How did he miss the sarcasm? "We're having Top Ramen," I say, and hang up. The house looks like a tornado hit it. The dog has blue marker all over one side of him, and nobody knows how it got there. Four minutes into the lifelong cartoon ban, I relent, only to reinstate it when the child throws an absolute fit because Dora is over. "You MADE me miss it!" he yells. I silently point to the "naughty corner." He's been there so much today, I may as well turn his room into an office - he won't be needing it any time soon. Mother-in-law comes over - unannounced of course - and wants to take the baby, but not the little criminal. Since one screaming child is better than two, I hand her over, not bothering to wave as they leave. There is peace for perhaps three seconds before I check the naughty corner and find no child in it. The child is in the kitchen, eating dog food out of the bag. Apparently the colors make it "look yummy." Now it's three forty-five, and my husband will be home in an hour and fifteen minutes, expecting pork loin. He will not find it here. What he will find is a child who needs a bath, a lecture, and his teeth brushed. He will find another child missing, and will have to drive across town to his mother's to collect her, because there is no way in HELL I'm going to do it. He will find a blue dog and a plate that bears the remnants of PB&J with no bread. (I piled it on the plate and let him eat it with a spoon. I have to pick my battles). He will find the trash can he emptied this morning filled to the brim with dirty diapers, an empty tube of watermelon lip gloss (someone - not me - ate it) and Crayola markers. (Did you think I was going to let the child have them back?) He will also find a wife who loves him, and a son who wants to be just like him. But tomorrow - tomorrow, I'm looking for a new job. |
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