My kids would NOT leave me alone this morning.
In the bathroom. While I was doing dishes. When I was trying to eat lunch.
Play with me, Mommy. PLAY WITH ME.
Now my ass is sitting painfully on the floor, coloring materials in hand. And I shit you not, the kids are playing nicely together in the other room for like the first time ever. They want nothing to do with me.
Until I have to poop. Then they’ll want everything to do with me.
If your 5 year old dropped a curse word, you’d be pissed right?
So, my 9-year-old my son earned a real life pet fish for sustained good behavior in the face of challenges.
He’s already named it Gilbert and doesn’t even have it yet. It’s a whole thing.
Today my 5 year-old daughter remarked out of the blue, “I get nothing and Dante gets a damned fish!”
“What did you say?” I asked, shocked. I mean, this child has the most precious smile. She’s a little wild, but never a bad word previously. I didn’t even know she KNEW bad words.
She was instantly ashamed. I sent her to time out.
All I could do was LAUGH. And my son totally caught me.
I was stunned and so, so amused. She used the curse word correctly and with such fervor. She reminded me of my grandma when she’s real mad. I could not even.
Maybe you’d be pissed if your kindergartner dropped a curse word. Or maybe you’d have to hide your laugh. Parenthood is a shit show, and sometimes a “bad” word or two and a good laugh are the medicine.
We forgot the family Valentine’s project was due today for my daughter’s virtual kindergarten class.
You just had to show a Valentine you’d made for the class. Another kid had made a Valentine with all of the kids in the class as part of a caterpillar or something, and was really in it to win it.
My daughter wanted to tell the class she didn’t do the project, and I was proud of her honesty.
But she is also in preschool a few hours a week, and had just that day brought home a bag she’d made to hold her Valentine’s. And then I convinced her to quickly rip off the front of the Valentine bag and show that. I mean, she made it, right? And it’s a Valentine.
I’m not proud of myself, but also I’m proud of myself, ya feel me? 💌
I bought this sexy little negligee for funsies and went to hand wash it this morning in the sink, because let’s just say it did its job.
I turned on the bathroom sink to fill it up and let the lingerie soak while I prepared to jump in the shower and get my daughter in the bath before she headed to preschool. Typical morning chaos. You know how it is.
A few minutes later my son came in the bathroom and called to me in the shower.
“Mom! The water is leaking everywhere!”
Holy shit. The sink was still on.
My son turned off the sink, and my husband emerged from the toilet closet like an angry bear tasked with gathering up every towel we own to sop up the water.
My son headed downstairs to start his school Zoom, and noticed the water leaking from the ceiling.
So if you try to make a sexy little splash when you’re a parent, it will probably turn into a flood that will drown all the sexy for ever and ever amen.
This is my husband’s tri-tip he smoked for hours on his fancy new pellet smoker.
Up until he bought this smoker as an early 40th birthday present to himself, I thought pellets were just those obnoxious little foam things that come out of my son’s Nerf guns and I find all over the house.
Anyway, my husband is the cook in our family, and he’s damn good at it.
We had this steak for dinner last night, and today I actually took the time to pack myself a lunch for work of leftover tri-tip and veggies. On a Monday morning, mind you. No fast food for this girl. Not today. I was being GOOD.
I was starving by the time lunch rolled around, and couldn’t wait to heat up that container of pure deliciousness. For the white fat to melt into buttery flavor. I even packed a Kiwi fruit to slice up and eat along with the steak and veggies. Yes, I really brought my A lunch game this pandemic Monday.
Having sliced up the Kiwi into a little cardboard bowl, I retrieved the steak from the office break room microwave with mouth-watering anticipation.
And then promptly dropped it face down on the floor.
Steak and veggies everywhere. Each piece coated with bottom-of-shoe-grime from every person who walks through that break room.
I knelt down and picked them up one by one. Shrapnel from my broken heart embedded in every broccoli and perfectly-smoked slice of tri-tip.
All in the trash.
Kiwi and pre-packaged salad it was. Could be worse. First-world problems to the max.
But I wanted to tell you about the demise of this lovely steak so you can feel just a little better about your day.
And so I wouldn’t have to suffer in silence.
Happier Tuesday, friends. 🥩
Samantha Scroggin, Walking Outside in Slippers 