Working Mommmmmyyyyy!

I bought a half gallon of pineapple-orange juice yesterday. It was a special treat for the kids as they are usually stuck with water or milk at home. Although every once in a while I'll let them have a sip of my pop ("soda" for all you southerners -meatheads), and of course, they get juice boxes in their lunches at school, and occasionally they'll inadvertently slug down a sip of beer thinking it's pop but will spit it out, spewing, "That's beer! Yuck!" (They haven't yet realized the unbelievable healing effects of beer although I've noticed if I have too many I always get symptoms of the flu). Yet, I've digressed.

I picked them up from school, went over the usual, "What was your favorite part of the day" question with them. (My daughter's was "playing kickball" with her brother; my son's was "right now, Mommy." Awww... Mine was the moment they discover I've come into their classroom to get them. They yell "Mommmmmyyyyy!" and run toward me with their arms spread wide. We hug for a few seconds, exchange kisses and then proceed to the truck outside. The truck is only fifteen feet from the door, but it takes a good twenty minutes to get to it). And again, I digress.

I settle them at the kitchen table with crayons and note paper, or a puzzle, or a toy train set, or a dump truck as big as the table, or something else (like a bucket full of water that they've somehow snuck into the house from God knows where), and pour a glass of the pineapple-orange juice for them to drink while I get dinner ready.

"Yum. Delicious!"

I knew it.

We eat dinner. It is yum! Delicious! My son eats well past the time it takes a normal human being to eat. He eats, and eats, and eats, surpassing the amount I've eaten by about seven tablespoons (although 3 of them have gone from his spoon, to his lap, to the floor, to the dogs). When we get done, I clear the dishes, leaving them to "run around" until the dishwasher is full and the stove and table are wiped.

Okay. It took me thirty seconds to run outside to the front to get the recycle bin, walk through my mudroom to the back porch and put the bin on the deck. When I walked in the door, the remainder of the half gallon of (yum! delicious!) pineapple-orange juice is either on top of the dogs food (as the dogs are standing over it wondering why the hell the milk I usually pour over their dinner tastes like crap) and the rest of it is on the floor, a puddle in front of the stove, the sink and the refrigerator, with little feet marks all around it. (Mind you, I had given the kids a bath before dinner because it would save me time while dinner cooked in the oven. Oh, it was an Italian sausage, green and red pepper, potato and onion stew-like meal that tasted amazing!).

Anyway, my son's socks were soaked with pineapple-orange juice and when I came into the house and screamed, "No! Get out of my kitchen! What'd you do?" he proceeded to run away and onto the hardwood floors of the living room, crying. (Big baby!) "Ugh!" That was all I said after that, honest! He came back into the kitchen, crying and screaming over and over, "Mommy, I'm gonna tell on you!" He was so damn cute, but I needed to let him know that the pineapple-orange juice didn't grown on trees (well, technically, I guess it does) and that it's not okay to pour it all over the dog's food and the kitchen floor. I am saying this as I mop up the mess.

But he wouldn't listen! He just kept saying, "I'm gonna tell on you! I'm gonna tell on you!" So I asked, "Who are you gonna tell?" and with the meanest face he could muster he said, "Mommy!" And I said, "Well, I'm gonna tell Tony on you!"

It took a few seconds, but he got it.

He started giggling, and ran toward me with his arms wide open. We hugged and I stripped him of his pajamas and put him back in the bathtub.

That was my evening after a full day of work yesterday. So worth it!