Cracking Up

Tonight at dinner I lost it. I started cracking up. And I mean that in the I-started-laughing-and-couldn't-stop kind of way. Not in the way that might mean I was starting to crack. Although that's probably the reason behind my laughter-driven tears.

It all started with a long afternoon chasing around a 2 year old. And then we hit the unhappy hour. These days I have resorted to turning on the TV at 5pm so I can get some dinner cooked without 30 pounds stuck to my legs insisting on being picked up. But today I was feeling like I had already used the doctor recommended allowed time of 2 hours of "screen time" per day. In fact most days that allotment seems to go by the wayside before nap time. Oops. Perhaps I shouldn't admit that to the public. But hey, look at you. You're sitting there glued to the screen right now. So you can't throw stones from inside your glass monitor.

But they were all playing pretty well together at about 5pm tonight, so I just made a quiet move over to the kitchen and got things going. Now is when the fun starts. About every 3 minutes I am either pulling one of my kids off of their sibling or crawling on the floor picking up pieces of something that was thrown through the air or knocked over. At the very least I'm barking out orders to "leave her alone!" or "stop throwing things!", or the classic "STOP YELLING!".

This continues for the better part of an hour while I cook some ground beef and cut up some vegetables. Now in most homes across the country this culinary skill may take only 10 minutes. But in my home, with no "screen time", it can take up to an hour, which is what happened tonight.

Finally my husband gets home, which means the relief shift has begun. I finish what I need to for dinner and get everyone's food on the table. Then we all sit down for dinner.

Wait. That's an overstatement. There's not a whole lot of sitting going on. At least not for my husband or me.

First I forgot the napkins, so I was up again to get those. Then one of the girls needed more milk, so I was up again for that. Then someone dropped a fork, so my husband went to get a new one. Then my son finished his peaches, so my husband went to get some more. Then my younger daughter wants more peaches too. But she doesn't like "those kind" of peaches, can she have the other kind? And during this time my husband and I have barely touched our food, and yet my oldest claims "I'm done - can I be excused?".

This happens a lot at dinner time. She wolfs it all down and then wants to get up again. She's not the type to sit still for long, so I can't blame her. But we always make her wait until someone else is finished as well before she can get up. I'm not sure why, other than to make her pay for her carefree life and the envy she causes us at her ability to eat food while it's still hot.

Then my younger daughter decides her taco won't stay together so she won't eat it. My husband gets up to get a toothpick to solve the problem. About one minute later she declares that she doesn't like what she's eating and asks for a plain tortilla. As my husband is up getting a tortilla, my oldest decides she wants one too, but can we put butter on it and heat it up for her? Sure, WHY NOT? We were just standing around the kitchen wondering what else can we do around here besides sitting down to eat the rest of our dinner?

Now they are all armed with tortillas, plus the bag is now in the middle of the table, with the milk and an extra fork. Frankly, they don't make lazy susans big enough for all the crap that needs to be within reach of us while we sit at the dinner table.

As I approach my chair one last time I just start laughing. I think I had a moment where I saw this all through my husband's eyes, and I had to laugh. He gets home and every single day he gets the "hero's welcome". The kids run to greet him and give him smiles and hugs. And that's about where the fun ends for a while.

Because we go right into this song and dance we call dinner time. Suddenly I saw the past 30 minutes rush through my head all at once, like some crazy-ass dance you might see if there were ever a musical about whacked out exhausted parents of three small children.

Sit down...stand up...open cupboard...sit down..."eat your dinner"...bend over...pick up fork...stand up...open drawer...sit down..."eat your veggies"...stand up...open fridge...sit down..."don't throw your food"...bend over...pick up food...stand up...open pantry...sit down...standupsitdownstandupsitdown...TA DA!

And it just cracked me up. I was laughing so hard tears were streaming. My kids were asking me what's wrong and I couldn't answer. My husband just said "I think mommy's losing it." Which is a bit true really. Why else would I be laughing so hard at the very thing that drives us bonkers?

Because the alternative was to cry out of sadness and exhaustion I guess.

And I choose laughter.

My glass is always half full.

At least until one of the kids finishes it and asks for more.

Unhappy Hour

I'm sure most of you are familiar with happy hour. Or at least you were familiar with it back in your twenties, or during what I like to call our "fun years". You know the drill; you go out to a local bar between 5 and 7pm, enjoy a deal on drinks and get happy. If you're lucky, you get some food thrown in with the deal and you get ecstatic.

I like to call that time of day in our house the unhappy hour.

It starts and ends at the same time, and there is usually some drinking and eating happening, but it's not very happy. At least not for me. There is just too much going on in the house and I can't seem to accomplish anything in one fell swoop. Interruptions to dinner-making abound, and my mind starts to unravel.

Perhaps I need to be pouring some cosmos into martini glasses during this time instead of milk into sippy cups.

Let's take tonight for example.

Unfortunately, my husband didn't make it home in time for unhappy hour tonight. Here's what he missed.

My son had not had his afternoon nap, so being the crankiest in the house, he was first in line at the food buffet. This entailed placing him in his high chair, or prison cell, depending on how you look at it, and putting anything and everything from the pantry onto his tray. Cheese puffs, goldfish, pretzels, you name it. Lots of good bar food.

After his third attempt at escape, I let him out of his chair. Of course he then proceeded to crawl up to me at every opportunity, no matter where I put him in the house, and attach himself to my leg, begging for mercy.

After a few rounds of leg attachments while I was dealing with raw chicken and an 8 inch kitchen knife, he moved on to play with my daughter's dirty shoes and socks lying on the floor.

What? Something wrong with that?

Then the dog barked for his dinner. Promptly after filling up his bowl with dog food, my son found his way to the dog bowls.

Remember that old puppy chow commercial where the puppies come racing around the kitchen corner for their food? It's like that, but my son is the puppy. And he comes a runnin' when he hears that food hit the bowl. He just can't stay away from that stuff. The good news is he doesn't eat it. Anymore.

After a few rounds of son vs. dog (the dog that is three times my son's size was gracious enough to back off every time the baby got close to the bowl - apparently he got the memo on the new sheriff in town), the dog finally finished his dinner. At least someone in the house was fed.

I then turned down the rice that was boiling over and continued cooking. At this point I decided to give my son some actual dinner. I put some more food on his tray and let him go at it. I was a little late in remembering that his hands were all over the dog food and water, but I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that dogs have less bacteria in their mouths than humans.

I'm also pretty sure that researcher never smelled my dog's breath.

And where were my daughter's, you ask? Parked in front of the tv, where any self-respecting child would be during this chaos. But they were in separate rooms, since I had upset my oldest earlier on and she went to sulk. She also refuses to watch her little sister's "baby" shows. After a brief pow-wow with her, I was back to making dinner.

There was a small talking-to with my younger daughter when it was time to turn off the tv and come to the table, but we made it through relatively unscathed.

Meanwhile my son was on his third solo attempt at the stairs. After a final rescue, he was back in the high chair.

And dinner was served.

Two surly girls, one over-active, dog-food-throwing boy, an ass-breath dog and a missing husband; putting the un back into unhappy hour.

Tomorrow we order in pizza. And beer.