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Well, one of the Johnsons has officially hit the ‘mid-thirties’ mark. It’s all downhill from here, I suppose. We were talking last night and J said, ‘we’re Mike and Carrie’s age, when we first met them.’ It’s true. When we met our friends who were then in their mid-thirties, we were just young pups in our ‘mid-twenties.’ And now WE’RE the ‘old’ people who have friends still in their twenties.
Unfortunately I don’t have any of the classic Jason Johnson photos available digitally. Like the one of him climbing up a pole in high school, wearing a mullet and a midriff-baring shirt. Or his senior photo with the same mullet, wearing a pink (err, red) shirt, earnestly resting his face upon his fist – displaying that blue and gold class ring ‘just so.’
And I didn’t have a camera ready when he showed up for our first date wearing forest green pants, blue Nike high tops and a paisley shirt. And I failed to capture those infamous mustard colored pants which were pegged with great care.
Though his tastes and style of dress have changed over the years that I’ve known him, the five cornerstones of Jason Johnson-ness have remained intact:
Humor: Whether Far Side or Jack Handy, Seinfeld or Arrested Development, (or The Big Lebowski), the man loves a laugh and loves to quote a laugh. Always has, always will.
Shoes: Whether weird blue Nike high tops or forest green Pumas with red trim, he loves sneakers. We have polar opposite taste in shoes and it’s the one thing I don’t even try to buy for him.
T-shirts: When our courtship started he was wearing ’This Man is Dead’ and ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ t-shirts. Over the years the shirts, proclaiming ‘Undiscovered Superstar’ or bearing the likeness of B.A. from the A-team, have gotten more sophisticated. I try to throw them out, but he cries ‘Golden Boy’ and I lose the battle every time.
Hair: Mullet (luckily I didn’t know him then); Frat boy/Soccer player hair; Buzz cut; Shaved head and Faux-hawk/Gentleman’s Mohawk. He’s strangely particular about his hair. Rumor has it he used to blow-dry it in high school. Well, that makes one of us.
Spanish Music: Gipsy Kings, Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, Vilma Palma E Vampiros Luis Perales. He has Latin tastes, even if he can’t bust a Latin move. [Be sure to watch the youtube video at least to the chorus; those girls on stage dancing their little hearts out deserve it. Plus, it's a song about t-r-a-n-s-v-e-s-t-i-t-e-s, how could you not?]
He’s also amazing with our babies. Not many men would survive being a stay at home dad (for ten weeks) to a newborn. Of course, not many newborns would be subjected to televised soccer matches while a fan’s blowing on them, either.
I don’t know if it’s the Canadian water or just his stage of life, but all of a sudden G is obsessed with getting bigger and older. Whenever he is in conversation with another person, he announces right away ‘I’m going to be five on my next birthday’ which he emphasizes by sticking out one hand with all five fingers extended. [Five. Just so you know.] Usually he’ll even toss in a ‘on March 7th.’ Just for good measure, in case they’re taking notes.
Complete strangers and new friends alike, everyone is told, right away, that G will be 5 in less than six months. And he’s already thinking about ideas for his birthday cake: a bus, a turtle… It seems that every day brings some new proclamation of what will happen in the future…when he is bigger.
It started with driving. I was taking him to preschool when he piped up from the back: ‘When I get big like you I can drive the car.’ Fearing a future with G at the wheel, I tried to quash that idea in its infancy. ‘I’m not going to let you drive!’ Which made him angry. ‘Yes, you are…because I will be big like you.’ It just seems strange to me that he’s already deduced that at a specific age (or size) you can drive a car. I’ve no idea when it dawned on me that I’d someday drive a car. Maybe in driver’s ed training? Or on the road with Mr. Odum, the instructor, who was doing his utmost not to clutch the ‘teacher-brakes’ with all his might; while I did my best to keep the car on the road. ‘Slow down, Nicole..’ he cautioned with a shaky voice. Even in my nervous state it irritated me that he couldn’t say my name right.
A day or so after the driving comment, he moved on to spending money. We were driving to the grocery store and he said ‘when I get big I’m going to get money so I can buy a Thomas train.’ Curious as to his understanding of the cost of things, I asked ‘how much money will you get’. ‘Fifteen dollars’ he replied. Which, remarkably, would cover the cost of some of the ‘lesser’ trains. The money comments didn’t stop there, either. A few weekends later he raised the issue of his purchase power again. So, being the ‘go-with-the-flow’ parents that we are, we introduced the concept of allowance; of doing chores to earn money so he could buy toys. When we got home he cleaned out the car and picked up all the legos and stray toys lying around. He earned $1 which was deposited in his piggy bank. Of course he wanted to go to the store right away, and we had to explain that he’d need to do chores a ‘few’ more times in order to actually buy something in this economy. To keep the momentum going, I asked him what toys he envisioned buying with his chore money. ‘A camper’ he responded. Like the one we’d seen earlier at the store. But when I posed the same question to him the following day he’d already changed his mind. ‘I want to buy a transformer with four cars…not the camper.’
Next he began talking about riding the bus to school. ‘When I get big, I’m going to ride the bus to school,’ he announced. ‘No, you’re not,’ I disagreed. He got mad again, at me squelching his independence.
He even started changing what he wore to bed. ‘I’m not going to wear a shirt tonight. I’m just gonna wear pants, like my dad.’ So on many nights he now wears long pajama bottoms to bed and no shirt. Which is funny, because it does make him look a lot older and also because his dad actually does wear a shirt to bed.
Occasionally when I ask ‘do you want me to read that book to you?’ He’ll reply without looking up: ‘no thanks, I just want to read it myself.’ Like a disinterested teenager replies to an over-eager mom. He was sitting with me on my bed the other night, reading a couple of books, independently. After a while he hopped off, seemingly bored. ‘Well, I’m going to my bed now. Sleep well, mom.’
Sleep well?!
I’m pretty sure it says somewhere – like maybe the BIBLE – ‘thou shalt not lie’. And, in my ripe old age I’m figuring out why it just doesn’t pay to lie. If you tell a lie you have to remember details – false information – and you have to perpetuate that false information at certain times. It’s just a lot to keep up with, especially if you’re operating on a fourth of the brain power you once possessed
For most of our married life we had a cat, named Uli. We adopted her as newlyweds in Nashville and she lived with us for 9 and a half of her 12 years. She suffered through a move to Minneapolis and a move back to Indiana. Through two active rottweilers. And two active boys. And two years of living in exile at my mother’s house with two other cats. All she wanted in return for this suffering was: to sleep on my person every single night of her life (preferably with her butt in my face) and to vomit whenever she felt like it. And of course food and water and a clean-ish litter box.
So the time came for us to move to Calgary and it just didn’t seem logical to export a 12 year old cat who weighed about 9lbs and vomited several times a week. I didn’t have any ‘takers’ when I generously offered to give her up, and I didn’t think a skinny old cat had much of a chance at the pound. So I decided to ‘take her to the vet’.
But how could I explain this decision, or the cat’s imminent demise to my four year old? His little mind already had to process the ambiguity of ‘moving’ to ‘Canada’, it just didn’t seem smart to add ‘death’ to the list. Call me a lazy coward, but I’d prefer to postpone the death conversation for as long as possible.
And in my defense, I honestly didn’t think he was all that attached to the cat. Obviously she’d been in the house all of his life, but it’s not as if they ‘played’ together, unless you call a cat hightailing it out of a room the minute you enter it, ‘playing’. She was barely on speaking terms with most of the members of the family.
So I explained to G that ‘Pukeli’ as he had called her, was sick. And I was going to take her to the vet. I might have added that she’d be convalescing at my mom’s house afterward. A blatant lie meant to ameliorate a difficult truth. I had the boys say goodbye to her and took pictures of their last moment with her. Since we wouldn’t be back at my mom’s house for four months, I figured ‘we’ had plenty of time to forget about the cat – who was supposed to be living at my mom’s.
And that was that. Other than a couple of perfunctory inquiries within the first week, it was as if Pukeli had never existed. I breathed a little sigh of relief, thinking the matter had been dealt with.
Wrong.
Nearly two months after moving away, the questions started as the memories surfaced. ‘Remember our cat?’ ‘Is she going to come to Canada?’ ‘Remember we had a cat, Pukeli…’
I’d explain that she was sick and wasn’t going to come to live with us. And he seemed satisfied. Or, at least, didn’t question me too much.
But this week, the memory game reached a new level. ‘I want to make a yarn ball for our cat, Pukeli,’ he announced on Sunday. ‘Well, she’s probably too sick to play with a yarn ball. What if we make one for Ouma’s cat, Sophie?’
And there was yesterday’s story hour at the library. We were sitting there patiently listening to Ethan-the-librarian’s slightly dull stories, when Ethan started talking about animals. One or two kids piped up about their animals. I don’t even know the context since I wasn’t paying attention. (Boooooring!) But all of a sudden, my kid who, thus far, abhors any kind of public participation, announces, to the entire room: ‘I have a cat! Her name is Pukeli….But she’s sick.’
My head was on fire from all the burning coals he’d just heaped on it. Part of me was excited that G had spoken up in such a public setting. And part of me felt like I had a neon sign flashing above my head ‘Lying mom!’
I guess there’s no denying I need to have that difficult conversation after all.
‘G, Pukeli ran away from Ouma’s house yesterday. And she can’t find her anywhere…..’
I’m a little out of my milieu in my own household, since I’ve never had a brother and don’t really understand the ‘brother to brother relationship’. I definitely remember fighting with my sister when we were growing up, but I don’t recall us interacting the way the little people at my house do. (At least, not until we were a LOT older.)
What is it with the older brother’s innate need to dominate the younger? Why? I watch my kids play together, and I see G go out of his way to bump into his little brother. They can be on opposite sides of a room, and G will go find a way to get in the baby’s ’space’ and mess with him. They’ll be chasing each other around, happy as can be, but G inevitably runs up to within a quarter of an inch of his brother’s heels and ‘accidentally’ trips him. Every time. Even the simple act of walking past the little guy results in some ‘accidental’ swiping or pushing or pulling.
Then there’s the issue of the toys. G could be sitting in a room, happily playing with a red car, alone. But as soon as his brother approaches, one of two things happens: he either physically encircles all of the cars with one arm while warding off his brother with the other. OR, if the Hen picks up, say, a black car, G will immediately drop the red car and lunge towards the black car insisting he was playing with it, and that it’s his favorite car in the whole world.
It’s beyond petty and juvenile, even if they are only 4 and 1. It drives me crazy! And it’s not entirely one-sided, either.
What is it with little brothers and their innate need to bother their older brothers? It’s almost as if their life-goal is to manipulate their parents into blaming the older brother for everything, even when they’re not at fault?
There have been many a time when the Hen will approach G’s area of play and demand the toy of his affections. For a kid with zero words, he’s a surprisingly effective communicator – using the point and grunt method. But in the, admittedly rare, instances when the object of his insistence is given to him, he immediately loses interest. If his brother doesn’t want it, he most certainly doesn’t, either. He only wants what he can’t have.
Recently he has advanced to a higher level of taunting: holding a favorite object in front of his brother’s face. When G notices what his baby brother has in his hands, the little man takes off running (as only a 14 month old runs), fully expecting to be chased. It’s hilarious and a little disconcerting. Can little people really be this ‘evil’?
Many nights ago we were having a discussion with G about some behavioral infraction, and he started crying. Not to be outdone, little brother started crying, too. Louder than his older brother. No one was reprimanding him, or even talking to him, yet he felt the need to chime in. Crying in tandem.
Bizarro.
Thanks to his father’s impeccable example, G is suddenly very taken with the idea of having breakfast in bed. Specifically, bringing ME breakfast in bed. It is beyond sweet and adorable. And also a teensy bit annoying. If I’m getting up twice during the night to tend to our youngest family member, I’d much rather grab a few minutes of extra sleep in the morning than have breakfast. Right away.
Twice this week he came into our room, lay on the bed for a few minutes then announced: ‘I’m going to bring you breakfast in bed.’ The first time I accepted his offer, but today I was just too tired.
‘Maybe in ten minutes’ I pleaded, half asleep. So Jason escorted him downstairs and fed him some cereal, trying to keep our eager beaver from rushing back upstairs with a bowl of shredded wheat for me.
Several minutes later, he appeared by my bedside again. ‘Are you ready to have breakfast in bed now?’ he inquired. ‘Okay, sure’ I guiltily relented. What kind of mother opts to sleep when her son offers to bring her breakfast in bed? (Maybe the kind of mother who doesn’t get a full night of sleep.)
Satisfied, he left the room and walked down the stairs shouting to his ‘worker’ in the kitchen: ‘Dad, mom said she wants her breakfast in bed now, now, now!” Feeling like a misquoted celebrity, I almost shouted ‘I did NOT say that.’ Instead I lay back and hoped Jason would realize who the true author of those words were.
Moments later I had a bowl of frosted mini-wheats in my hand and the older Johnson boys standing beside me. ‘Umh, what happened to the [Kashi] cinnamon shredded wheat?’ I inquired meekly, so as not to appear ungrateful. ‘Your son said you wanted [frosted mini wheats]. He also said you didn’t want any milk with it. But I didn’t figure you wanted to eat dry cereal, so I put milk in the bowl,’ Jason explained.
Two seconds later the Hen walked in and grunted and pointed his way onto the bed. Which means I ended up with half of a bowl of cereal.
What do you feed your peeps for Friday night dinner when you didn’t plan anything for it and don’t have anything interesting in your fridge to eat? And also, how do you while away the last 2 and a half hours before the kids can be put to bed (in good conscience)?
You make smoothies as an ‘appetizer’ which quells the worst of their hunger pains. Toss some orange juice, frozen mango, peaches, and pineapple in a blender and puree. Serve. While you’re sipping (or spooning) the smoothies, you rack your brain trying to come up with something more substantive for the next course.
‘Crepes’ your husband suggests. So that’s what you make. To make it a little bit more ‘interesting’, more meal-like, you sautee some thinly sliced apples in butter and brown sugar sprinkled with cinnamon. And then you start making the crepes. Which will take two and a half hours because the burners on your stove don’t work very well, so you’ll try three different pans in the process just to get one decent crepe.
Spoon some of the apple onto the crepe surface, sprinkle with more cinnamon sugar. Roll up and serve on plastic plates to the peeps standing around in the kitchen, waiting for their grub. No need for silverware or even a chair.
If you’re lucky your peeps will drop a lot of pieces of crepe all over the kitchen floor. Then they will step on those pieces as they’re running around. The pieces will get stuck to the bottoms of their feet and spread onto the carpet and the stairs.
Which is neat if you’re walking around the house barefoot.
- If you’re wondering how to cut $3.75 from your budget, I have a suggestion. Don’t buy the ‘Salted Caramel’ hot chocolate from Starbucks.
Sure, it sounds fancy and delicious. But so did the dreadful Dulce de Leche Latte, or whatever they called it for the very brief period of time it was offered.
I didn’t really detect a hint of actual salted caramel, but if you happen to like the taste of the hot chocolate, I have an idea for how you can replicate it for approximately $1.50 at home. Go to the store. Buy a package of Land’O Lake’s hot chocolate mix. It should cost anywhere from 69 cents to 99 cents. I believe there is a ‘caramel’ flavor, but let’s be honest, they all taste the same. Heat some milk at home, add the powder to your milk. Stir vigorously and enjoy. If you want to be extra fancy, you can even add a little pinch of salt and call it ’salted caramel’ hot chocolate.
But I’m pretty sure the mix already has a fair amount of sodium in it, so you might as well skip the salt.
- If you’re wondering how to shave 99 minutes off your very full weekend schedule, I have a suggestion. Don’t watch the movie ‘The Counterfeiters’ (Die Falscher for you German speakers, sorry no umlaut.)
You might see the preview at some point and think to yourself, that seems like a really interesting Holocaust movie (I did!) and from the little bit I gathered at the end, there really was a big ‘counterfeiting’ operation going on during WWII. But the interesting premise did not translate into a sufficiently interesting film. ‘What did you think?’ I asked Jason when we finished watching it, curious if he thought it was as blah as I did. ‘Ergh…50/50′ he replied.
Which I think means woefully average. I should have clarified.
My in-laws visited the Ukraine this past summer. They brought back ‘nesting’ ornaments for the grandkids. It’s a Christmas tree, which you open to find a Santa Claus, which you open to find a snowman, which you open to find a penguin, which you open to find the world’s smallest Christmas tree.
Fun times if you’re a kid. Less fun times if you’re a parent trying to keep the pieces together. We moved to Calgary and the ornaments came along. We lived in temporary housing and the ornament pieces covered the floor and at least once each day there would be a panicked cry from the oldest one: ‘where’s the little snowman’ or ‘where’s the tiny christmas tree?’ Followed by some angry mumbling on the part of the parent charged with the lovely task of finding the missing, miniscule piece.
We even went so far as to hide the ornaments deep in the recesses of another suitcase, but within a day or two, there they were.
One night, during our first week in Calgary, we stopped for dinner. It was late, the kids were crabby and we stopped at the first place that wasn’t McDonald’s. That place was ‘Le Chien Chaud.’ The ‘hot dog’.
As we were the only customers in the joint, the female proprietor chatted with us. She pointed to the boys’ ornaments which were now accompanying us on car rides. ‘That’s a matriushka’ she informed my oldest. Apparently these nesting ornaments have a name.
The very next day as we were driving around Calgary, we spotted a Russian Restaurant called: Matriushka. And as we kept getting lost, we kept driving by ‘Matriushka.’ Look kids, it’s Matriushka…..look kids, it’s…..
By that point Jason and I were feeling a little tired of the Matriushkas that were taking over our lives. It felt like a strange horror movie, these nesting ornaments popping up everywhere we went. When we moved into our house, the ornaments were put away.
Two months later, G remembered the blessed ornaments. ‘Do you remember my ornaments that Grandma gave me?’ He asked me yesterday. I went into an explanation about how they were called Matriushkas. And how they were staying in the basement with all of the other Christmas ornaments. Even though they weren’t. They were actually in the closet in our bedroom.
After lunch, G requested an audience with his Matriushka. I caved. Hearing a four and a half year old boy say ‘Matriushka’ was just too cute. I went to the closet and retrieved the ornaments.
He kindly set one aside for his little brother and focused on dismantling the other one. He went to school and came back and played with it some more. We went on a family walk, and the matriushka came too. Or so I gathered when I saw bits of snowman and snowdoll staring at me from the stroller seat.
I vaguely recall thinking the ornaments should be put away to prevent catastrophe, but I didn’t act on it. We crossed the bridge to the playground and all of a sudden I heard G crying that something had fallen out of his stroller. I knew it was a piece of that wretched ornament. I just hoped it was one of the bigger pieces. Sure enough, the top half of the penguin had fallen through the two-inch wide opening between the wall and bottom of the bridge.
Suddenly we weren’t going to the playground. We were walking to the bridge underpass to find the proverbial needle in a haystack. The top half of a penguin that measured about 3/4 inch in diameter. Amidst an expanse of dead leaves, sticks and dirt. Super.
Of course, kids being kids, G wasn’t remotely interested in helping us find the penguin head. He was more interested in standing to the side crying, and eventually wandering off towards the pebble ‘beach’ by the edge of the river. ‘Thanks for the blog entry’ I muttered as I attempted to ‘dig’ through the rotting leaves without actually touching them. Ready to give up, Jason asked: ‘Does this particular blog entry need a happy ending?’ ‘Ideally’ I retorted and went back to ‘digging.’ Finally I found a stick with which to move the leaves around. ‘This is the part of parenting no one ever tells you about,’ I complained. I imagined passersby peering down wondering what on earth two, seemingly non-homeless adults were doing digging through the leaves.
‘It’s like digging for a retainer in the garbage’ J said, remembering the part in ‘Parenthood’ when the son accidentally threw away his pricey retainer. They were forced to sort through garbage to find it. ‘Except retainers are expensive and this thing is probably worth 25 cents,’ he grumbled.
I thought back to another afternoon in Guthrie Park, mere months ago, when I was digging around for G’s Hot Wheels toothbrush that he’d insisted on taking along. A diligent search yielded nothing and I was forced to drive back to Walgreen’s to pick up the last Hot Wheels toothbrush in stock. The next day, as we were walking in the park, we miraculously found the toothbrush.
I visualized the top half of the penguin, even though I probably couldn’t have picked it out of a line-up of matriushka penguins. I tried to determine the exact point where it must have fallen, but all the surmising in the world wasn’t going to deliver the head of a penguin. Just as I was about to say ‘let’s just go,’ Jason somehow spotted it.
We summoned the boys and made our way back to the abandoned strollers. I returned the head of the penguin to its body and hid the blasted Matriushka in the stroller basket.
‘But I want my Matriushka,’ G whined.
‘No!’ We both said.
It really bothers me to waste food. It actually kind of gnaws at my insides a little bit….thinking of food in the fridge that is going past its prime and will have to be thrown away. Full head of broccoli now tinged with yellow. Toss. An unopened container of ’spring greens’ two weeks past its expiration date. Toss. Like throwing money in the trash can, really.
Yet we do it all the time. Things get shoved into the fridge and are inevitably forgotten about until it’s fridge clean day and the stuff is green and fuzzy or I can’t even remember how or why it got there. If I had a dollar for every time Jason said to me: ‘why do you buy salad? We don’t eat it. It just sits in the fridge and then it gets thrown away….’ I’d have a lot of dollars.
I just had to throw away an entirely unused tub of fresh basil, because it was a weird dark color and smelled funny. I’d meant to garnish last week’s chicken curry with it, but forgot to. And then I was going to make pizza, but didn’t…..
That really irritated me and I sort of resolved to let that be the last time. So as I was thinking of ‘what to make for dinner’ last night, I remembered there were some items in the fridge that needed to be used, pronto. And I was bound and determined to use them:
- A plastic container of roasted squash…that I’d roasted but not used, for last Thursday’s chickpeas and squash (which I most likely won’t repeat – sorry Orangette and Soulemama.) Usually if I feel a little bit sick at the memory of a particular food, that’s a sure sign I shouldn’t make it again.
- One leek. I’d originally bought two with the intention of making butternut squash soup, but ended up roasting the squash for the aforementioned chickpea dish. So I used one of the leeks for an omelette, which left me with a leek. Leeks are expensive, I did not want to waste one.
- An opened quart of chicken stock…that I might have used to make sweet potato and apple soup…I think..
- Leftover fresh sage, originally bought to make spinach ricotta pasta.
- An opened container of ricotta cheese that was purchased for the aforementioned spinach pasta.
There wasn’t enough squash to make a soup for four people, so I had to come up with something else. I decided to make pasta with butternut squash sauce. My constituents were thrilled.
G peered at the stove and announced: ‘I don’t like squash. I don’t want to eat that.’ His father gave me the evil eye that he usually sends my way when I’m preparing something squash-like for dinner. The Hen didn’t care, he was starving, fervently tugging at my pant legs.
So, I chopped up the leek and sauteed it in butter. Added the chopped fresh sage after the leek had softened. Then added the roasted squash and a little bit of stock and cooked it for a bit. I pureed the mixture in a food processor, because I am of the opinion that people are more likely to eat something they don’t like if texture isn’t a factor. G watched me carefully. ‘Are you making baby food?’ ‘No, I’m making pasta sauce.’ No comment.
I seasoned the ‘baby food’ with salt and pepper. Then added some of the ricotta. Mascarpone cheese would have been an infinitely better addition, but I had an open container of ricotta in my fridge. Bummer.
I added a little bit of the pasta water too, to keep the consistency sauce-like. I tossed (cooked) bowtie pasta with the sauce and sprinkled liberally with parmesan cheese. I’d also toasted some leftover pine nuts which I added to the mix. I felt practically giddy with excitement at using so many leftover ingredients!
The verdict: success!
‘Delicious,’ J announced. G ate all of his dinner except for the pine nuts. He doesn’t trust them, for some reason. And I believe the Hen ate his and smeared it all over his face too.
It’s even better the next day served with a few bits of leftover bacon.
J found me at the computer last night and announced he was going to the convenience store for some Sprite. Apparently he’d over-indulged in the pizza I’d made for dinner. It was a long time before he returned, which was slightly worrisome, since it is possible to walk there and back in less than five minutes. I had visions of him lying on the side of the street in gastric distress, so I was relieved when he came home about 30 minutes later.
When I saw the grocery bag he attempted to hide, I knew he was up to something, but I had no idea what. It hit me a few minutes later: he was going to make me cinnamon rolls to make up for ‘the lost roll.’ While I watched a few episodes of 30 Rock on the laptop, he prepped the dough in the kitchen. And when it was still very dark outside this morning, he got out of bed to bake the blessed rolls. Before long the smell wafted up the stairs.
The intensely burning smell.
‘The rolls are burning,’ I mumbled in my sleepy state. ‘No they’re not.’ ‘Yes, they are.’ I insisted. ‘They’ve only been baking for 14 minutes,’ he countered. ‘Well, you know that oven is messed up,’ I reminded him. ‘Yeah, but I set it ten degrees lower than it should be.’ ‘Ten degrees??? It needs to be fifty degrees lower….’ And with that, Jason hopped downstairs to salvage the rolls.
After spending another half hour listening to the work in the kitchen, I willed myself out of bed. When I walked into the kitchen, I was rebuked. ‘You need to go back to bed,’ G informed me. I happily obliged. Within five minutes J and his oldest sidekick were in my room with a tray bearing coffee, cinnamon rolls and orange juice.
If all mornings could start this way! The Hen joined us a short while later, having already had his breakfast at the crack of dawn followed by a little snooze. We lazed around, watching the boys build towers of individually wrapped toilet paper; monitoring the intermittent bed-jumping fests.
Around 10am I realized three things. (1) I was still wearing my pajamas; (2) Jason’s only work obligation consisted of a meeting from 1-2pm; (3) Today was the day to play my ‘I watched your kids for a week card’.
‘I’m taking to my bed.’ I announced. And Jason, being the good man that he is, agreed to support me in my lofty endeavor. I made a few quick forays into the kitchen for more refreshment, but otherwise I basically stayed put until late afternoon.
I call it the lazy mother’s home-spa. Instead of a massage, you get to flip through an entire magazine, or two. Instead of aromatherapy, you get the wafts of the smelly diapers being changed by your husband.
It’s kind of perfect.
