I was up at 6 a.m. with two small boys that were ready to start the day WAY before Meemaw on a Saturday.
“Dylan says his tummy is hungry!” explained 4-year-old Jacob for 14-month-old Dylan who was looking up at me, silently, and smiling.
“Oh, really? What does his stomach want?” I inquired, mentally kicking myself for asking.
“French fries and bacon!”
“Uh, how about pancakes and bacon, or eggs and bacon?”
“No, that makes his tummy hurt. French fries and bacon make his tummy all better.” Dylan has been known to chow down on cat food and insects who have either passed beyond their earthly travails to dine on the heavenly decomposing cow in the sky or to be stuck in the endless spiderweb of torment for eternity. Nothing makes Dylan’s tummy hurt. We were talking about Jacob’s food likes and dislikes here.
After pouring bowls of cold cereal to keep the peasants from revolting small children from screaming and crying loudly about their hungry tummies while hanging on to my legs while I attempted to cook, I located some tater tots in the freezer to cook along with the bacon. They’re sort of French fryish. They’re both made out of potatoes, after all. After the second bowl of cereal, Jacob was ready to eat his bacon and tater tots, as was Dylan. After breakfast, they split a banana, had several cups of chocolate milk, some juice, apple slices and cheese crackers. This was not enough to keep them from imminent starvation by 10:30 a.m.
“Meemaw, Mommy makes THIS and it’s yummy”, Jacob announced, holding a package of chocolate pudding. Dylan again stood in silent agreement, giving me the feeling that I was in the presence of Jay and Silent Bob, save for the lecture that I had received earlier in the day from Jacob when I intervened in a heated discussion in which the boys were whacking each other in the head with toys. “Meemaw, we do not use that word in our house. It is a bad word. We say gosh instead. Do you hear me, Meemaw?”
Pudding it was. I went to the kitchen to prepare it but before I had a chance to even measure the milk, Jacob “accidentally” smacked Dylan in the head with his Spiderman chair and had to go to the time-out chair until he said he was sorry. Jacob decided to cry instead of apologizing, so Dylan took the opportunity to whack Jacob in the head with a wooden block in retaliation which I sympathized with as it gave Jacob something to actually cry about but, as an authority figure, couldn’t condone no matter how meritorious I thought the retaliation was. Dylan sat quietly in his time-out chair while Jacob pitched a hissy fit sobbed. Now that I was the common enemy, perhaps I could get the pudding done.
After hugging, eating chocolate pudding, and Dylan diaper changes, I decided to move it outside even though the tropical disturbance, now Cristobal, had dumped quite a bit of rainfall in its birthing travail and left a somewhat soggy landscape. It was time to swing on swings and dig for treasure which, if we discovered a tunnel, Jacob generously offered to let me come into the tunnel and carry the treasure out as a pack mule substitute. As the practice tunnels were filling up with water, we decided that today wasn’t really a very good day to find hidden treasure tunnels, but it was still a great day to swing.
Then back inside to vigorously scrub little muddy boys in the bathtub while they made a mess of the bathroom (and MeeMaw) with water squirty toys that MeeMaw let them play with in the tub. Anything to get lil’ boys clean.
Then lunchtime with leftover pork ribs from last night, baked potatoes, more apple slices, and chocolate pudding for dessert. When I was clearing off the table prior to putting Dylan down for his nap, I asked Jacob “What happened to your spoon and Dylan’s spoon?”
“I already cleaned the spoons for you with my tongue, Meemaw, and put them away in the drawer for you!” announced Jacob, proudly.
Which is why, after they’ve gone home with daddy, all the silverware has been placed in the dishwasher. I realize that this is probably a prime example of how picky women always want to re-do the things that men have already done for them, so men quit even trying to get it right when it comes to helping around the kitchen. After all, why bother, if their way of cleaning doesn’t make her happy anyway?
