You Get Potato. I Meant Tomato.

I'm making sandwiches.  In my sandwiches there always goes, in this order:

Bread

Mayo

Wasabi

Turkey (or beef)

Cheese

Sliced Cucumbers (or lettuce)

Sliced Tomatoes

(other bread, already dressed in mayo and wasabi)

Shoulder-deep into the sandwich making process I ask Husband, "Could you get me the potato from the fridge, please?"

Husband, kindly goes to the fridge and gets me a potato.

Before he can close the fridge I say, "No no, get me the red one, the red thing. The…." and I pause, treading in tasks while making sure Toddler does not destroy the living room.  "The…"

Husband queries, (sometimes humorously, sometimes impatiently, depending on his hunger), "The what?  What do you need?"

Me, treading more frantically amidst the cheese and bread, "No, Toddler, that's dangerous for little creatures such as yourself.  No, Toddler!  No, NO no Thank you!" deftly grabbing the__________(please insert: dangerous object of your choice) or deflecting the__________(please insert: big mess making-opportunity-for -a-child, of your choice).  *I am not good at multi-tasking.*  And, going to the fridge, I fetch the TOMATO I was looking for.

Husband, "Oh, I see, the TOMATO!  I thought you said you wanted a POTATO!"

Me, somewhat archly, "Yes, I wanted a tomato, which you could have realized had you taken the time to use your adept, logical mind. You've seen me make a thousand sandwiches and know what goes in them. So you should know, or at least know better than to fetch me a potato!"

Husband, abashedly, "I thought you were making stew." 

Me, "Why would I make a stew when it's 8pm and we haven't eaten and it's Toddler's bedtime and we're so very hungry and too poor/health conscious to grab McDonald's on the way home?"

Toddler, "I wan' go Old McDonald's!!  I don' wan' dis food!" and throws bowl of cereal on the floor, which husband had thoughtfully prepared despite the fact that I had been dramatically making Toddler a delicious peanut butter and jam sandwich.  

When Wife goes mad, Husband sweetly follows suit 
in an effort to keep up with her pace.  Toddler enjoys the messy times and jubilantly follows Daddy and Mama into madness.

Poor Husband is expected to fill out a logic puzzle
"A potato does not go on a sandwich (usually) so what is not on the sandwich that usually goes there and sounds similar to potato?"  And yet, Wife can't be bothered to remember the much easier task of remembering a noun.  :(   Sorry, darling <3  

Humor in Humiliation.

Despite my shame of being a stressed-out-hypocrite in such moments, I don't think I'd ever want to forget them.  Husband, especially, finds them humorous despite my poor temper.  His retellings of my flustrations (flustered+exclamations=flustrations) are always charming and heart-warming.  It's one of his magical gifts.


Mistress Mary

In general, I have always been impatient with language.  As a child I felt frustrated and confused when my parents and siblings would laugh at me when my gift for getting lyrics and rhymes incorrect would bear fruit such as:

"Mistresss Mary Quite Contrary, 

  How does your garden grow?

  With silver bells and taco shells 

  And pretty maids all in a row."

The confusion came from being laughed at;
the frustration, from everyone refusing to tell me was was so funny.   Now, having enjoyed my own little guy's anecdotes myself, I think my parents probably just loved my "gift" and didn't want me to fix it. I'm grateful they let me keep my rhymes.

Sometimes it's nice to let Mistress Mary have her tacos.  
She is so pleased with how they are bright as a daisy, and wonderfully buttery as, well, as a buttercup, of course.

The Toilet

In exactly a month I turn 30.  It's about time I became a grown up...somewhat.  A new decade will begin soon, a decade without the confusion of the teens and haphazardness of the 20s.  I'll be 30, an adult.  I'm not feeling creative or bright or funny tonight. I was quite brilliant in my own head earlier, but then, being a mom, things happen and by the time the dishes are done, family cherished, stories read and tea made it's all gone.  This is a blog which will most likely be written in distraction, in forced moments that entirely lack the savory, skipping, light, loveliness that may lightly grace my writing on a good day.  This is a blog by a mom.  A young mom who will soon be 30!

How did tonight's blog start? You're probably not asking.

It started when I dropped the floss into the toilet.  Our bathroom is a small room with a squeaky gray floor and a mirror smudged with thumbprints on the right side where we pull it open.  The sink is white and small and has green counter-stuff on it. It is a pale grassy green that is almost cheerful, but more tired, and is barely in existence anyway, as it makes a little rectangle (nigh a square) in which the sink perches delicately, with just enough room to rest.   This counter/sink is so impossibly close to the toilet there isn't room to put a toilet paper holder onto the side of it.  The other wall is also very close to the toilet, it's the wall that encases the upright shower that reminds me of the cheap showers that come in the buildings I make for my little Sims characters.  Thus, have I only now realized fully: There is no toilet holder because there is no room for a toilet holder on either side of the toilet.    If a large person were to sit down they would simply break the toilet holder off, or they would break skin and that would be sad, don't you think?

So our toilet paper is kept on top of the toilet, and we unwind it freely as we wish, it's comfortable and keeps us flexible, reaching 'round backwards to get the toilet paper while we're sitting on the toilet.  I'm sure this would also prove difficult for a large person, but it probably wouldn't create as much difficulty as putting an obstruction to their derrier touching the seat.  

As I've been meaning to write something before I turn thirty and start a new decade of self-control and less sleep.  When the floss made a very pleasant sounding "plop" into the toilet my first thought was, "I have to get it."  Husband cannot get it, due to squeamishness, and Toddler would very much like to get it, but I'd rather him not.  I will get it.  And I wondered, "How many times have I reached into the toilet since becoming a mom?"  Since using cloth diapers I stopped counting.  I use the toilet bowl as a scrubbing bowl for each pooey one; Toddler has pooed a lot in his 2.5 years.  


My second thought was,"I will write about how women are supposedly more delicate and yet are generally the ones who willingly (or at least less unwillingly) clean up all the various human fluids that drip, leak, spray, ooze, or other forms of squishy movement, in a traditional couple where children are involved."  (NOTE: all women aren't more "delicate," specifically, but I know many couples where the fairer sex really is more fair and lovely.  I am somewhat a tomboy and aggressive, but even I am still more delicate than my husband, much more emotionally fragile and, literally, half his physical size, (but not half his height)).

That was my thought, only at the time it was full of brilliant quips and lovely extra examples which immediately began to fade.  

Then I cleaned the sink, wiped the mirror, replaced the toothbrushes and toothpaste, put the toilet paper back properly sitting on the back of the toilet and went into the kitchen to boil water for tea.  While the water was warming up I hung the clothes from the washer up to dry, finished the dishes, cleaned the stove, counters and the kitchen sink and noted my socks were wet from my assertive dish cleaning.  But the water was boiling already so I poured it over a bag of tea into a clear glass and came to my desk to type the long lost quips and anecdotes about dropping floss into the toilet and the meaning of life as a mom.

And here we are.

And the floss is still in the toilet.