Instead of griping and complaining about my day, I am going to look at it with the perspective I will have in a few years. I assume this new perspective will make the events of the day terribly funny – and laughing all day counts for the best day ever, doesn’t it??
So I put Juliet in her chair with some beef stroganoff and start cleaning the kitchen. I'm feeling a little sick so I make myself a smoothie for dinner, and just as I turn off the blender I hear a crash and thump.
The crash was Juliet's bowl being thrown against the table, and the thump was it hitting the ground. The beef stroganoff flying in all directions and splattering across the floor didn't seem to make any sound at all.
I got her out of her (now sticky) sundress and put her in her pajamas. She'd missed a nap that day so even though it was only 6 I felt that bedtime was imminent.
I had some extra smoothie so set her up in front of some cartoons with a sippy cup of a fresh and delicious snack, and I returned to my kitchen.
Bensen was supposedly sleeping during all this time. Come to find out, he was actually filling his diaper and most of his onsie. I'll let you try and figure out what he was filling it with.
Finally finished with Bensen, I check on Juliet only to find she has turned her sippy cup upside down on the couch. Strawberry banana yogurty goodness suddenly becomes finger-paint. The world is Juliet’s canvas. I strip her down and clean up the couch as best I can.
Bensen has spit up all over his new onsie. Like, a lot of really smelly gross spit up. I decide it is time for a bath.
For what feels like the first time all day, Bensen is calm! He loves the bath. I think it takes pressure off of his endlessly aching tummy. My house is quiet for about five minutes. Juliet (clad only in her size 3 diaper) walks into the bathroom to show me a crumpled photograph. Actually she has left a breadcrumb trail of photographs all through the house. Some torn, most crumpled, all ripped off of her cute photo wall ribbon. I take the time to put a diaper on Bensen, but that’s it. It is a warm evening, and he’ll probably smell up anything I put on him. Both of my kids are now naked.
I gather the photographs up and tuck them away in my “to-do” pile (a code name for the stack of papers and books I keep on my bookshelf that I will probably never “do”). Bensen is crying again. He’s so hungry he could die. I sit down to nurse him.
Nursing is still painful.
10 minutes later I realize I haven’t been paying any attention to Juliet. She has climbed into her chair at the table where a bag of groceries has been waiting patiently to get put away. Juliet has found them. More specifically, Juliet has found a carton of eggs.
Couldn’t you just die laughing?
No I couldn’t. The wounds are too fresh. The truth is, I couldn’t die laughing – I could’ve just died then and there.
I wish I could always be “that person” that sees the humor in every situation. I mean, seriously, eggs scattered about the carpet almost artistically, their insides slowly oozing out of the lace-like cracks caused by a swift fall from table or hand to floor. That is the stuff movies are made from. That is funny stuff! But at the time I honestly just wanted to cry.
But we can laugh about it later, right?
Well, just writing about it has already put a smile on my face. Maybe later will arrive sooner than I’d hoped.
It is obviously time for bed. I retrieve Juliet from the table, kicking and screaming, struggle to dress her in a new set of pajamas, and put her in bed. Bensen, having been cut off early from his dinner, is now kicking and screaming. And instead of locking myself in the bathroom or running from the apartment pulling my hair out, I feel I did the mature thing and simply burst into tears.
Best. Day. Ever.
Brett is in trouble. You see, he failed to do his husbandly duty. He forgot (or maybe didn't ever know, but that seems absurd) that any time I ask, "Brett, should I cut my bangs?" he is required as a good husband to immediately respond, "NO."