I was trying to pull the asparagus from the Instant Pot as the timer on the oven indicated the bacon was done. Brad was just outside the kitchen glass door grilling the chicken. She was ravaging through the drawer right underneath the instant pot.
I roared, "Get out of the way!" I was trying to put yet another dinner together that everyone would eat. She huffed and puffed a little louder, "Why don't we have any balloons. Do you want me to fail?"
In that moment I didn't care. I had one focus, it was to get another meal on the table. Instead of sweet motherly care I had a wild look of determination in my eye. I flipped the grilled cheese sandwiches on the electric skillet as I tried to say in a calmer voice, "Can we please look for a possible random balloon after I get done preparing dinner?"
Undeterred she continued to shuffle through the drawer as the asparagus started getting soft and limp in the hot water. She grumbled about how unfair life was not having parents that were organized enough to locate a balloon on demand for her project. This project I had just learned about five minutes ago.
Life is unfair.
It is unfair for her. It is unfair for me. It is unfair for our sweet little two year-old that has to hear the run around our fights cause almost every night at meal time.
Expectations are dashed daily in this family life.
At the dinner table Judah drank his "pink" lemonade. Swishing it around in his mouth he spit it back out in his cup. His eyes began to light up at the discovery of a new game. As he repeated the drink, swish, spit routine his sisters complained. He was being so disgusting they thought. As a lesson, the Balloon Complainer dropped a goldfish cracker in his lemonade. She smirked, feeling as if she was dealing out justice. Brad spoke up, "don't do that, you are teaching him to play with his food."
Sure enough he instantly added two goldfish to his glass of back-washed pink lemonade. Another argument was breaking out spontaneously when Judah's little hand dropped a little fish shaped cracker into the pitcher of pink powdered drink. Fishing it out quickly, I instinctively threw it, hitting the Balloon rights activist/ brother disciplinarian in the face. She looked at me in stunned silence, everyone stopped talking, as the goldfish bounced off her forehead landing on her plate.
"Mom! how could you?"
How could I? From my point of view this Little Darling had become a pain in my back side and I had no grace, no mercy, and for a moment no maturity in dealing with her.
After another verbally shower of words I put on my walking shoes. The other sister followed suit. Brad and Judah got dressed to go too. We were almost out the door when the Goldfish assaulted daughter poked her head through the door to the garage.
"Can I go?"
Everything within me wanted to yell, "NO!" but the mother's heart, the part of me that labored to get this precious child into the world, spoke up, "Sure, get your shoes and hurry the sun will be going down soon."
The quieter sister mumbled something about life not being fair as I climbed into the back of the van so the Humbled sister could take the front seat.
In a few minutes we were walking and laughing together on the nature trail. The girl's chatter sang out over the green grass and budding trees. As our feet walked along the black top trail I looked out over the rolling hills of prairie grass. The sky was pink and purple now with the orange gleam of the setting sun. We had forgotten the fight that was so heated only fifteen minutes before as the topics of boy bands and favorite Netflix series were discussed. I realized, in that brief moment, I was blessed to have these little women in my life.
The word count of that conversation was well over 10,000. My ears felt exhausted by the time we got back to the van, but my heart felt merry again. This quarantine has created many scuffles, but we are learning to walk off our anger. We are learning to get over each other's faults.
I realize as my children grow that I am always wishfully thinking I will be a fair mother. That I will be Cool, calm, and collected. That I will some how be a walking Proverb and my children will want to respect my space, value my time, and listen to me when I need a moment of peace and quiet.
Life is not fair. And I must confess neither am I. But that is why this family practices the simple phrase "I am sorry" daily and sometimes hourly.
She got her balloon and was able to finish her project. The world didn't crumble and we forgave each other for the goldfish catastrophe. The sun went down. We all went to bed finishing one day, and looking forward to the next.
Thank you for being so real!!! You make me laugh and cry! Isn't that what a good writer is supposed to do?
ReplyDelete