Spice

We had one of those nights tonight.  Those deer in the headlight, can't believe you survived kind of nights.  The kind where you could really use a good cry or a good laugh.  So I pulled out the list.  You know the list.  The one we keep of all the funny, goofy, insulting things our children say and do.  The one that makes us question why we ever thought that we were fit to be parents.

It's a good thing that our memories are more kind and forgiving of a situation than what may have actually been in the moment.

Isaac once told me, and he was SO amazed, "toilet water tastes just like bath water!"  I don't even want to know the context behind that one.

And once, you know, last week,  we took a trip to New Mexico for a family funeral.  It was someone from my husband's extended family who he hadn't seen in years and I had never met.  We spent the entire day driving, making a 45 minute bathroom stop every half an hour, and got there thirty minutes into the viewing.  We walked as somberly as possible into a silent room full of grieving individuals, took our seats, and Addie immediately proceeded to ask, very loudly, over and over again, if it's dead.  It's amazing how far a toddler voice carries in a silent, somewhat echo-y room.  She then declared loudly that she pooped.  Sorry Mom, went #2.  At this point, I'm starting to lose it.  Laughter is the best medicine unless it's in response to a completely awkward and inappropriate situation.  Jeff was giving me death glares and probably regretting decisions he had made some 12 years ago.

The other day, Addie woke up in the night, so of course, rather than suffer through the torture of trying to get her to go back to her own bed, I put her in mine.  Sometime in the wee hours, she woke me up saying, "poopy, mommy!"  Knowing that she was in a full body suit jammie and couldn't get out, and not actually smelling anything, I told her to go to sleep and then rolled over and took my own advice.  Countless hours later, I woke to find that I was sleeping next to a buck naked baby.  Who, unbelievably fortunately, was not actually poopy.  At some point, they just start taking care of themselves I guess.

Once, we had my grandparents sleep over, and about midnight, we realized that our feisty cat was locked in the room with them under the bed.  Not sure how that one ended.  Hopefully no one got their ankles swiped.

Here's a good one.  We started a new chore chart that has been LIFE CHANGING for us.  No holds barred, I put everything on there.  Sweep, mop, vacuum, load dishwasher, scrub bathroom.  All of the worst things that I used to save for myself.  My kids have taken on more responsibility, we're working hard as a family, I have more time to actually do leisurely things, like fold the laundry.  Win, win, win.  Until last week.  When someone went to clean the toilet.  And we realized that the toilet brush was gone.  The one we use to scrub the inside of the toilet.  Gone.  Misplaced.  Somewhere lost in the house.  Just let that sink in.  I dread the day we find it.

Sometimes I'm not sure if I want to always remember these moments or forget that they ever happened.

But as parents, we have our moments, too.  On my birthday, my sweet neighbor made these pumpkin bars and shared some with us.  They were a light, fluffy, melt in your mouth kind of delicious.  And I knew that we would be having pumpkin pie after dinner because that's what we DO for my birthday.  So just before dinner, while everyone was so selflessly wrapping thoughtful presents for me, I hid out in the pantry and devoured those pumpkin bars.  Then I cut up the few remaining into 1" squares and spread them out on the plate to make it look full.  Well, after dinner, Jeff informed me that he hadn't had time to get a pie.  Yep.  So I pulled out the 1" pumpkin bars, stuck a tiny square on each plate as I was dying inside of laughter and a little bit of unrepentant shame, and passed out the birthday cake to everyone.  They were none the wiser.

But we survive these rough nights and we look back with kinder eyes and less stress and remember how blessed we are and how sweet and loving they are and we realize that these hard things and the good things shape who we become and add spice to what could have been a really boring night.