Spooky

Gather ‘round me, young ones, and I’ll tell you a classic Halloween tale. A true story, filled with horror, gloom, and all sorts of goop. It’s the account of my day, two days ago.

It began, much as my average day begins, with my eyelids being pried open my Riley, my four-year-old. It’s a horrible way to start the day. It takes everything I’ve got not to let it influence my mood for the worse, and make me start out the day on the wrong foot. After a quick breakfast, I got to work, as I do every day. (I swear I leave the house relatively picked-up and clean when I go to bed each night, and a little dirt fairy comes and messes it up while I sleep. There’s mountains of laundry, which I’m sure breeds itself , dishes to be cleaned, beds to be made, toilets to be scrubbed, toys to be picked up, binkies to find... it’s endless. Thus, I’ve marked the time after breakfast as the time I put the house back together again, so I don’t have to stare the mess in the face for the rest of the day. I do it all again before I go to sleep, but that doesn’t seem to make any difference.) On the morning of the day of terror, I started one of five loads of laundry, and was unloading the dishwasher when I dejectedly noted that the kitchen floor is begging to be swept and mopped. I decide to do it that night, after Iris is asleep. And, speaking of sleep, it’s time for her morning nap! Hurrah! Nap time is the best time. After I put her to bed, I (Mother of the Year) park Riley in front of a movie, and have an internal debate on the merits of a shower. Bizarrely enough, the shower wins. As soon as I turn the water off, I hear Iris crying... crying the cry that I well know. The poop cry. I hasten to her room, knowing if I’m quick enough, I can change her and she’ll actually go back to sleep. It’s a nine-wipe diaper, consisting of what appears to be a lot of peanut butter, corn, and carrots. She does go back to seep, at least for a little bit, and I get to sit down. Ahhhhh.

Later in the day, Riley plays outside with some friends, and comes in covered in black something. It looks like oil, but doesn’t smell like it. Paint?, I wonder. No, it doesn’t come off like any kind of paint I’ve ever seen. I’m still not sure what it is, because my conversation with Riley about it went something like this:

Me: “What’s all over you?”
Riley: “What?”
M: “The black stuff on your shirts, pants, shoes, face, and hands. What is it?”
R: “What black stuff?”
M: “The.... never mind. Just go take your clothes off and meet me in the bathroom.”
R: “What?”
M: “GO!”

It took some Varsity scrubbing, but we mostly got it off her skin.

After I cleaned Riley, and the now-black bathroom, it was time for dinner. Unusually enough, Riley ate just fine, and Iris refused. It’s ordinarily the other way around. I was so flustered about the change, and kurflomoxed about what to feed Iris, as everything I tried made it to the floor, that I didn’t notice how much milk Iris was drinking. On some level, I knew I kept refilling her cup, but I suppose it didn’t register. After about two and a half cups of whole milk had been downed, I had a brilliant idea—yogurt! She loves yogurt. I fed her a whole Yoplait in no time, only to have her refuse the last bite with an odd look on her face. She kept shaking her head, and then made a gurgling sort of sound. And I knew what would happen. All over. All over her, all over her high chair, even dribbling down under the padding, in the buckles, and pooling on the foot rest. All over. It came up looking like cottage cheese and smelling worse. And I could only sit there and watch, guiltily. Mother of the Year, yet again. I had glutted her on dairy—it’s a wonder her stomach didn’t come up, too. After she finished, she looked at me, and giggled. She was apparently no worse for the experience. Her usual after-dinner rinse under the faucet just wasn’t going to cover it this time—she needed a full bath. By the time I finished with that, and jammied her up, it was bed time. Whew. One child down, one to go.

Shortly after Iris went to sleep, and as I was beginning the gargantuan task of cleaning the slop, Liz came for dinner. She was meeting her friend Lad here, and we were all going to have dinner. As she got out the ingredients for pesto pasta, I explained what had just happened. She sympathized and offered to help clean (proof of true friendship, as it smelled truly revolting), which I denied. She was about to begin when Lad came. Riley commandeered him and corralled him into her bedroom, where Liz went shortly after. I had finished with the chair, and started sweeping the floor when I noticed the smell of pine nuts. “Liz must have opened the bag before she went to Riley’s room,” I thought, and swept on. The more ground I covered with my broom, the more pronounced the scent became, and I began to notice a smoky aroma mixing with, and then overpowering the pine nut smell. It suddenly dawned on me—Liz had put the pine nuts on a cookie sheet under the broiler before she went to Riley’s room! I rushed to the oven, and stupidly opened the door. A split second after the rush of oxygen filled the oven’s cavity, a great burst of flame exploded out of it. Luckily (in this case) the batteries in our smoke detectors have run out, so I knew we wouldn’t be bowled over by the piercing beeps, and I was oddly calm. I called out, “Liz, we have a fire....” Another stroke of luck was that Liz was there and knew how to put it out using baking soda. I had no idea what to do, and would have had to let it burn out by itself and ruin the oven. Wow. It was a rather large oven fire. Whew. As Liz and Lad cleaned it up, I sent Riley downstairs with yet another movie, and finished sweeping and mopping the floor. Liz and Lad (I could call them Double L) went to get a pizza, and we sat down to eat. Aaaaah. Maybe the fourth time I’d sat that day.

We chatted back and forth over the pizza, and I guzzled my much-needed Dr. Pepper. Double L had opted for juice, and I poured them cups. Lad reached for his with a little too much gusto, and... bonk! Pomegranate Ruby juice spills all over the table, down the legs, and onto the floor. Boo hoo. My freshly washed floor. I only mop it every other month or so, and here I did it twice in one day. At least that part of it.

By then, Double L was feeling unnecessarily bad, and could, I’m sure, feel the waves of despair cascading off of me, and quickly took their leave. I put Riley to bed without incident, fortunately for her, and watched a mindless movie, trying to forget the previous 24 hours. Can’t believe I wasted a shower on a day like this.

The next morning I found that despite my nightly sojourn to Riley’s room at midnight, to help her go potty, she’d wet the bed. And so it began again.

Spooky, huh?