One of those weeks

It has been one of those weeks. One of those “wait, did my kid just wipe poop on my wall?” kind of weeks.

On Monday I spent the afternoon watching a plumber dismantle my toilet. One (or three) of my children had flushed one (or three) wooden letters from a bathroom stool down the toilet.

Just a friendly FYI, wood expands in water. It’s almost as if the lowercase letters morphed into uppercase. I used this upside down toilet opportunity to teach about that tricky little “n,” often confused with “m” and sometimes “w.”

The boys might as well have flushed $600 down the toilet along with the letters because that’s what it cost me to have them remove the toilet and then use a drill to break up the wood to get it out.

On Tuesday I was intentionally ambiguous (okay lied) in my conversation with the dentist about the amount of juice my child drinks and how often we floss his teeth. Occasionally for one, every day for the other.

On Wednesday I spent seven hours hovering over four year olds and an art project, irrationally obsessing over splattered permanent paint and an imperfect color scheme. I left with a renewed appreciation and admiration for preschool teachers. And proceeded to continue to obsess at home.

On Thursday we had our house professionally cleaned for the first time in a really long time. I enjoyed crumb-free floors, dust-free furniture and the loving waft of Pine Sol for exactly 23 minutes before the boys somehow managed to find an unopened box of cornmeal and proceeded to giggle wildly while making cornmeal angels on my once pristine wood floor.

Unfortunately this was not my first cornmeal rodeo. Fool me twice, shame on me…for not hiding my apparent Y2K supply of cornmeal.

On Friday, I found out I have a bunion on my left foot.

Or “bunion deformity” as my Extremely Attractive Orthopedic Surgeon liked to keep repeating during my appointment. Another friendly FYI, the phrase “if I was a betting man” and the word “surgery” should never be used in the same sentence. The EAOS turned the appointment over to a consultant named LaVonne with the parting words “LaVonne is here to discuss the financial implications of your bunion deformity.”

But on Saturday something remarkable happened.

I was driving home from dinner (aka a 15 minute food fight/screaming match at Cafe Rio) and was stopped at a stoplight. I turned and reached back behind me to check on one of my babies, sitting backward in his car seat. All I could see was his curly head of hair. I tapped his head to see if he was sleeping and he grabbed my hand with both of his and he pulled my hand closer to him. He wrapped all of his fingers around one of mine. And he held on and squeezed. And he wouldn’t let go. I tried to pull away, but he kept his grip on my hand, pulling it closer to him until it was resting on his chest. And then he picked his head up, turned and looked over his shoulder at me, and smiled. The kind of smile that comes from deep down inside. The kind of smile you remember always.

And when the light turned green, and I finally pulled my hand out of his so that I could turn and put it back on the steering wheel, I smiled to myself. The kind of smile that comes from deep down inside. The kind of smile you remember always.

And all was okay. In the world and in my week.

K