A story for Friday

Sometimes things here don't go according to plan. The first part of today had gone beautifully. We were all five dressed and two of us had been freshly bathed (Jeff, me, John Calvin). All five of us really, if B and V's baths last night count, which of course a bath w/in 48 hrs. when you are 5 or under counts as clean, in this house at least! This never happens, usually only one of us is dressed and clean before lunch and that is Jeff. In fact, he is dressed and clean before breakfast, but he doesn't count for the purposes of this story. So, anyway, after lots of doing and doing this morning, everything was fitting into place and the lunch hour was timed perfectly. I had just the right amount of time to nurse John Calvin, fix lunch and have it ready right at the moment Jeff walked in the door. (this is how it always happens in my dreams)

Side note: we watch Jeopardy everyday at 12:30 and so lunch has to be over in time for us to be settled on the couch when Alex announces the categories.

ANYway, so I opened the fridge to double check my lunch plans and when I did, I noticed some chicken juice had leaked out of the bag it was in and was puddled on the shelf. BIG problem. Can anyone say Salmonella? So, I began doing my best to clean it up, with antibacterial clean-up stuff of course. As I'm finishing this task, I knock the stopper from the wine bottle that is laying on its side and wine begins to leak out of the bottle onto the next shelf.........onliest thing is I don't notice this at the time. I don't notice it because I'm distracted by the fact that I've realized some tomatoes have gone bad and have leaked onto yet ANOTHER shelf. In the next few minutes, I'm busy cleaning up tomatoes and then, like most scatterbrains, in the mean time I've found three or four containers of this and that that are past their prime and ready to be thrown out, so I'm doing that as well. (essentially, I cleaned out the fridge today! hooray!)
In the background, John Calvin has gone from a gentle fuss to a full fledged squall and Virginia, doing her best to calm him, has begun to sing in a VERY loud voice her favorite song,
"In the holy world,
in the hoooooooooly world,
budding bee, tree so looonst
moore dev-onish......in the holy world"
I'm for real here, these are the words she sings and there's always a part about "the holy world." Did I mention it's really loud singing??
While this is going on, I'm scurrying around the kitchen, using an entire container of Clorox wipes and paper towels, cleaning up chicken juice, tomatoes, and wine, all three of which have dripped onto the floor AND now I've broken into a pretty furious sweat. (as a result of the crying) By the time I finish the cleanup, get lunch started, and go get John Calvin started with his lunch, I'm really not looking good, but the house is quiet.
At 12:02, Jeff walks in and everything seems so calm, no one's crying, no one's singing, and except for the fact that I look like I've just come in from a 3 mile run in 80 degree heat, I look like I've been sitting on the couch relaxing for the last hour. HA!
I always think, will the husbands ever know what life is really like at home??? Maybe it's best they don't!



Aside from the funny songs Virginia makes up, I've been hearing some hilarious things out of her mouth lately. A few days ago, she uttered the classic complaint every older sibling eventually voices.........."MOM! B is looking at me!" I just had to smile. It reminded me of the story about my cousin tattling on her brother: "Mom! Matt said I was born!"

Then this morning, I saw her flick her leg over his way in an attempt to kick him. "Virginia, don't do that please." I said. "What makes you think you can kick your brother," to which she replied, "Mommy, I'm just pretending he's hitting me."

Hmmm. I don't ever remember playing that game.




Benjamin is doing his best to talk. He's begun saying lots of toddler words. You know, they sound sort of like the real thing and they're similar enough that you know by context what is being said. Well, we've never been able to get him to say "dog." He says ball, bug, cup, etc. But when we ask, he always says "woof woof" in the place of dog. This week, I taught him the first question of the Shorter Catechism and sometimes when I say "Benjamin, who made you?" he gets confused and says "DOG!" I guess that's progress!