Running out of Steam
Today, as I tore through the grocery store in Shaun's big t-shirt, hair pinned back, and not an ounce of makeup on my face, Evan said to me, "Look at you, Mommy! You're so cute." And I don't care if he says please or thank you or anything else for the rest of the week- he's earned enough points to get him through. He also dropped something shortly thereafter and told me he "ran out of steam."
Madalyn is close behind him, though, as this afternoon she poked me in the eyeball with a finger coated in macaroni and cheese goo and said, "eyes." She also tried to slip herself my folic acid pill, that was next to her on the table- it made it into her mouth just before I fished it back out- thinking it'd be a high enough dose to be pretty toxic for her small bod. What kind of kid eats a pill anyway? Okay, so lots of kinds- or they wouldn't put them in childproof bottles. But this wasn't even a pretty pill! It was tiny and white, like the kind we used to have to hide in our dog's cheese so he wouldn't spit it out- I don't even know how she spotted it. Only Madalyn.
We later went to feed the ducks with Angie and Kaley. It was so fun and the kids were so cute- all holding hands and walking down the boardwalk at Crane's Roost. But not so pleasant was the foul smell that followed us there in my car. So revolting, in fact, that I'm considering tearing up all the carpet again- only this time for good.
At first I thought it was Madalyn's vomit- that we didn't clean the carseat well enough. I should've know that it was the husband's doing- that he'd given Evan a container of chocolate milk (a bribe to say, "see, don't you love daddy more" that always backfires on him in the form of sugar-shock.) This container, this time, he'd left exactly where Evan had thrown it, on the carpet under the seat, to leak out what was left and sour to the point of mutating bacteria that's sure to form some sort of new mass hysteria. The Avian Flu won't come from China- it'll come from our car.
I'm telling you I've never smelled anything this nasty- and I've smelled a lot of nasty things. Like when I visited my roommate's pig farm in college and they literally pushed operating masks in our hands, or like the time Evan pee'ed in his Lego table and we didn't discover it for a day or so, and then I had to clean it out while gagging and even after all of that, tossed it to the trash.
Beth Moore says mothers are the only ones who can function while still covered in lava. Soaked to the skin, I would usually offer my body to the flames and jump into the crisis with her... (Feathers from My Nest.)
So true- too true, these words came back to me as I dumped nearly a bottle of vinegar on the carpet in the car, and scrubbed it with wetwipes while saying repeatedly, "This smells so bad, Evan. I've never smelled anything this bad..." And I still haven't gotten out the stench.
This incident led to me stopping by the dumpster to rid my car of all trash- everything had to go that minute as if my life depended on it. The kids looked at me with the same confusion they did when I went around collecting boxes near dumpsters for our last move. She is sooo weird. What this time??
And it does seem a bit early, but what the heck- let the nesting begin!
