This is Matt's week "on," which means that he works seven days in a row, ten hour shifts, and so I was alone with all four kids in the parking lot unloading for Gee's baseball class. Cue screamed hysterically, the catastrophe du minute being a dropped rock. A rock. That he dropped and could not reach. I'm surprised it didn't make the evening news.
OHNO. Ohno. OHNO!!! MY ROCK!!! MY ROoooooOOOOOOCK!!!
Just a...
MYROCKMYROOOOOOOOOCK!!! CAN'TREACHIT!!!! MYROOOOOCKMYROOOOOCKMYROCKMY...
Just a...Cue can you give me a minute. Okay. All right. We'll get it.
Oh hell. As I spoke words of soothing rock comfort, I body blocked the fourteen-week-old Great Dane puppy that was trying to evade my brilliant dodge and feint moves to leap from the minivan and cavort, idiotically, about the parking lot, while unbuckling Babynater with one hand and pulling him onto my hip from his car seat.
My other hand held a full, steaming chai tea latte. The chai hand yields to no baby extraction, puppy escape or rock dropping crisis.
Unless Brad Pitt wants a handshake or someone is mortally injured, that hand is busy.
I finally extracted the baby, settled him on my hip and was directing Ess and Gee around the van from the other side when Hampton lunged for a crack between my other hip and the van door frame. I checked him against the frame because I am wicked smooth and have lightening fast reflexes. Ahem. When I checked him, while holding the baby and not spilling my tea, he crouched down and then lunged up, barking loudly in my face.
That's right, a teenage GREAT DANE PUPPY gave me lip about when he could, or could not, exit the car. So, I did what any good Great Dane mother would do. I barked back in his face, only LOUDER.
(Stay tuned with the anyfamily into the teen years. I guarantee my fantastically mature, rational parenting skills will continue.)
Hampton Noodle scampered to the rear seat of the minivan and cowered there, which I considered a stunning victory over...something. Cue emerged from the minivan, clutching his beloved, irreplaceable rock and I shut the door and turned around to find more than a few people scattered about the parking lot watching me and that was when it hit me.
My life is absolutely ridiculous.
For a moment, I wanted to shout at no one in particular: I HAVE A LAW DEGREE. I'VE ARGUED BEFORE A FEDERAL CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS. I'VE BEEN TO HAITI AS A VOLUNTEER. I WISH I'D GONE INTO PSYCHOLOGY AND I COULD HELP ADOPTIVE FAMILIES WITH ATTACHMENT ISSUES. I LOVE TO READ. I JUST FINISHED Let the Great World Spin. IT'S EXCELLENT. I THINK REALLY HARD ABOUT THINGS. I TRY TO BE COMPASSIONATE. I WROTE A ROMANCE NOVEL. A WHOLE DANG NOVEL AND I'M TRYING TO WRITE A SECOND DRAFT, THREE PAINFUL PAGES AT A TIME, AT NIGHT, IN THE HOUR A DAY THAT I HAVE TO MYSELF.
I am more than a stereotypical, harried mother of four barking at a Great Dane puppy in a parking lot.
Driving home, on the first warm evening of the year, with our windows down and the soft light of dusk sitting gently on our faces, the dog sat between the front seats with his head in my lap and the kids belted "Joy to the World," to anyone who would listen at every stoplight. We looked ridiculous and I turned it up and sang with them.
I'll take ridiculous. I've been other things. I've been too stressed about a legal argument to notice the soft light of dusk. I've been so overwhelmed, so mired in pain and confusion and fear as a mother that it snuffed out all the laughter and silliness. That there was no room for singing.
Thank god for ridiculous. Give me average, silly, mundane, ridiculous days, one after another in endless succession until I croak at ninety-three in some ridiculous, painless way. I'll make an ass of myself a thousand times and bark at impossible dogs and be mocked by endless numbers of observers if we can just stay here. Right here. In this soft light on the first warm day of the year, singing Jeremiah was a bullfrog at the top of our lungs.
Ridiculously happy.
((The amazing Countess Mo sent me that t-shirt. It's my new favorite. The package also contained a perfect sign for our mud room from Andrea of The Sweet Life, picture in a few months when I actually procure a hammer and nails. Thank you!! You made my month.))
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