That Time

It was that time of the day…Layne is off to school, I am back from the gym, baby is eating, the computer at my side catching up with an old friend Alison on her blog (did you know they had blogs in 2005!?) I am relaxed because my three year old is pretty much and angel, I am seriously concerned that he may be twinkled at any moment. I can be doing my own thing for HOURS and he does not come across an ounce of trouble. Now, with our first born, (that’s what we call him when we don’t want him to know we are talking about him) I would collect all the necessities, phone, burp cloth, nursing pillow, key and herd the boy into his room where I would then lock the door so that I could at least SEE what trouble he was getting into at that time. Yet he still managed to pull one over on me by starting a fire in the kitchen while we were locked away in the bedroom. You may ask how? and to this day Layne could tell you that if you put a tomato in the toaster it will start a fire. That time of the day was always stressful, I had to deal with a loud, destructive toddler crawling wildly all over me while protecting my baby and trying to feed him, never knowing if my house was going to be still standing when we emerged.

So here I am present day, sitting, feeding. relaxed. Jarom walks in, (he does this most days, a welcome treat, if you like your husband, and I do) we greet each other. He walks through the house into the kitchen, I watch him (who wouldn’t? he’s a FINE hunk of meat) turn the corner and his face changed to disappointment, his voice stern “Brik. What are you doing with the shortening?” In that 5 second pause a myriad of thoughts swarmed my mind. He has his fingers in the shortening, he has smeared it all over the cabinets, the floor, the unsealed wood pantry door, his hair, his clothes…I’ll have an hour’s worth of clean up and have to make a special trip to Sprouts to buy more. Am I going to have to start locking us up so that I can keep an eye on him? Do I smell fire? Why would I think these things? Because our first born has done them, more than once, with desetin, bag balm and the like. Then I hear the little angelic boy’s honest, sincere reply “ I was going to say ‘mom, look, we have two of these.'” I could picture him around the corner holding 2 unopened containers of shortening. A smile…SWEET RELEIF.

So for now that time is still fantastic, but I still worry about the twinkling thing.

P.S. The pictures have nothing to do with today. I just posted them because some people look for the pictures, some for the details. I’m a people pleaser.

Uncle John