The diaper explosion should have been my first indication.

Scratch that. The text from my kids’ dad asking if I could keep the girls tonight should have been my first indication. Now, I LOVE having my girls at home, but all 650 of my Facebook friends KNOW that Tuesday night is date night. All the experts say date nights are how you keep your marriage happy, and I’m here to testify, know what I’m sayin’? So Tuesday night is OUR night.

Except for tonight.

And then there was a diaper explosion.

When the baby is wearing several layers, including tights, and the poop is liquid and oozes through all the layers, just know that there’s NO WAY to get poopy tights off of a squirming baby without getting poop in your hair and between her toes.

Yeah. It’s never pretty. And now I have to wash the changing table cover. And my hair. And everything in between.

And then… Sigh.

Tonight, it just so happened that hubby had to be at choir practice at 6:00. It’s not the norm, but the choir is recording a CD and had to be at the church last night and again tonight. He gets home from work around 5:15. I wanted dinner done the second he walked in the door so he’d have time to eat and get to church before 6:00.

We live very close to church, but still, I was rushing.

It was at that exact moment that Annie came in and wanted to help me cook. Now, I’m ALL about having my kids in the kitchen. Since they were old enough to toddle I’ve had them unloading the dishwasher, cooking the beans, making cupcakes, you name it. I’m ALL about it.

Except for tonight.

I was rushing, and they tend to slow me down, know what I’m sayin’?

“Unload the dishwasher,” I said. “THAT will help me a lot.”

But as it turns out, when kids say they want to help in the kitchen, they don’t really want to HELP YOU, per se; they want to do the fun stuff. Help lick the beaters. Help taste the cookie dough. Then run off the instant it gets boring. THAT sort of help. But it was taco night and not cookie night, and I was rushing, so I caved and handed her a knife and said, “Here. Cut up this tomato.”

“What if I cut myself,” she asked. “You’re almost seven,” I said. “You will be really careful, and you won’t cut yourself.” See, I had meat browning on the iron skillet, butter melting in another skillet for Mexican rice , and I was running back and forth from the computer in the other room {where I had the taco seasoning recipe} to the pantry, because dangit, I’m 40 and apparently 40 is too old to remember six ingredients between the computer and the pantry.

So I’m stirring, dumping cumin, running back, running forth, stir, stir, run, dump paprika, run, stir, dump chili powder, run, stir, you get the idea. And meanwhile trying to keep my butter from burning. 

And the one job I asked her to do turned out to be a mangled mess, because she can’t cut, bless her little left-handed self. But it’s ok, because who cares what the tomato looks like? And who cares that there’s tomato everywhere but in the tomato bowl? It’s not like it’s cake batter all up in my under counter lights. And she didn’t cut herself.

Then Katie came in to do her job, which is to set the table, and this happened.

Yeah. That’s the entire contents of our ice maker, on the floor.

Now the thing you have to understand about Katie is that she’s VERY smart. VERY. SMART. But the second something spills, she freezes, paralyzed, like a deer in headlights.

And makes a tiny little sound that sounds like moop… moop…. moop…

It was what possessed someone to draw this…

And you know, I love Jesus, I DO, and I know I’m supposed to have love, joy, peace, patience, and all that, but when there’s a VERY SMART child standing and staring, paralyzed, at twelve gallons of ice melting across my kitchen floor while I have meat browning and butter simmering and I’m running around frantically trying to get these dadgum tacos on the table by 5:15….

It takes ALL the love, joy, peace, and patience I have to maintain my composure, know what I’m sayin? I mean, WHY do I have to spell out in detail EVERY time something spills, HOW to CLEAN it UP? WHERE the TOWELS are KEPT? IS IT JUST ME?

So I ask her very sweetly, “Katie, my darling… would you PLEASE go grab the broom and dust pan and try to scoop up this ice as fast as you can before it melts everywhere?”

“Where? is? the? broom?” *moop*”How? do? I? pick? this? up?” *moop*

It was at this point in the story that I blacked out, I think. I’m SURE I didn’t lose my calm. I’m just sure of it. I love Jesus, after all, and I’m ALL about love, joy, peace, and patience.

I came to as she was picking up one grain of ice at a time and depositing them, one at a time, in the sink. In between stopping and staring at each one as if it were a delicate and rare snowflake. And pondering what, exactly, would be the best method of picking up the next piece of ice as fourteen gallons of it is melting and filling my kitchen six inches deep with water.

OK, so remember how Annie wanted to help?

After she finishes mangling the tomato, I tell her to pour a cup of rice into the butter that’s been browning on the stove.

And then this happens on the counter.

And on the floor.

And Katie continues to ponder each rare and delicate crumb of ice as she transports them one at a time to the sink. And someone, I can’t remember now who, and it’s really not important to the story, runs out of love, joy, peace, and patience with the whole ice-cleanup process, and the twenty gallons of water melting on the floor, and SNAPS at Katie. The details are unclear, but something about do you NOT know what it means to HURRY, and WHY does she not know how to pick up ice off the floor, and how hard can it be, and YADA YADA YADA. I mean, it’s not important WHO snapped, or what exactly they said; but alas, Katie loses her composure and flails about and commences wailing about how HARD it is to PICK UP THIS ICE.

And somehow, accidentally, I’m sure, whacks Annie in the head with the broom handle.

And Annie loses it and falls out on the floor in a big dramatic, wailing heap, from the life-threatening injuries sustained as a result of the whack in the head with a broom handle.

And by now thirty eight gallons of water are melted on the kitchen floor.

And Susie, bless her heart, calmly sits and sucks her thumb and she takes in the spectacle of it all.

 

And now one side of my kitchen looks like this.

And the other side of my kitchen looks like this.

And my microwave looks like this.

And my stove top looks like this.

But somehow, by some miracle, dinner made it on the table the minute hubby walked in the door, and everything was delicious and perfect and not even burned… the tacos, the beans, the rice, the mangled tomato. We drank our water without ice, and dinner was all served up on a paper plate, but so what. It was all about quality family time, know what I’m sayin’?

And then Katie went to throw her paper plate in the trash and this happened. She hardly mooped at all that time, and at the rate she’s going she should have every last grain of rice picked up sometime between 3:00 and 5:00 in the morning.


 
But I’m ok, and I haven’t snapped in hours, I mean NOBODY is snapping around here, because we love Jesus, and we have love, joy, peace, and patience in ours hearts. And because we’ll be returning to our previously scheduled Tuesday night date night real soon. And because writing this blog post allows me to block out and therefore remain in denial about who’s really gonna have to clean up that kitchen at some point tonight.

And on a totally unrelated note, the Proposition passed that legalized selling alcohol right here in this county! It’s true… you can buy wine right here in town, right there at any grocery store, for the first time in 40-something years.

Totally unrelated, of course.