It's just a milkshake

The scene is only twelve seconds long but it has gotten under my skin to the point where I'm quoting it to the children.

It's just a milkshake.

hummus

Mommy and Daddy had a rocky afternoon. I can't get enough me-time and Daddy doesn't get any. Kids are sensitive creatures. They pick up on tensions, even when they involve hurled frozen veggie-burgers (Daddy) and hurled angry curse words (Mommy). It was subtle, yes, but kids are receptive. Like little sponges.

two's the limit

At the playground the other day, the weather was warm, sunny and breezy, one of those magical, unseasonable days where the air got balmier instead of cooler as the sun sank in the sky. I had my two kids there from about one o’clock until four-thirty. At around three I started weakly rounding them up, mostly because there was a lull in mothers that I wanted to talk to. But the kids were having fun climbing the monkey bars, digging in the sand and inspecting the new baseball turf. I was a little hungry, a little ornery, but not dead-set on leaving, especially as it would mean more work for me. Baths. Dinner. Picking up toys. Refereeing fights.

head nut

I woke up around 7:30, happy as a born-again Christian. Sipped my coffee, wrote in my journal, gazed around the room approvingly, even pored over a thick interiors book with Stella cozied on my lap, and somehow didn’t think to look at the clock to wake Hamish until 8:39, six minutes before I usually start schlepping everyone out of the house (at least my goal every morning is to leave by 8:45.) With only six minutes to get ready, there was no time for breakfast at the table, so I got them out with the promise of Pop-Tarts in the car. They’re fortified, people. 

open 24 hours

Bryan said to me this morning, very quietly and nonconfrontationally, “Are you okay? You’re so angry so often,” and I said, “It’s hard,” and we started having a lovely conversation about it. I thought maybe he’d decided that I need some tender listening care. You know, to preserve the marriage. We were interrupted, naturally.
But last night during a collaged dinner of leftover pizza and frozen Indian kofta curry (Hamish had eggs earlier) I told him that more and more, I feel like a waitress on the Friday night graveyard shift at a diner next door to a bar, only I don’t get to take my apron off and go home to a quiet and tidy place to sleep for eight uninterrupted hours. My shift never ends. My life as Groundhog Day. Groundhog Nightmare would be more accurate. In the diner of my life, it’s always right after the bars have shut their doors and the drunks have spilled in. They’re messy and belligerent and they want their food yesterday, but they drop it on the floor as soon as I set it down. And they piss in their pants.

Bryan understands.