it's all good

you know, i was having a good day. henry woke up grumpy, but that changed to a good mood fairly quickly. we ran some errands and both littles were a joy to be around.
henry trying on black high-heeled shoes, asking if the were tap shoes. put them back when i said no.
two littles humoring me as i speedily browsed. (did find a great pair of blue tights for myself and a great stripey consignment sweater for the boy).
huge crazy halloween store near where we were so i indulged henry by going in. he was being so good i couldn't say no the day before halloween. walked in said he didn't like the spooky stuff. we looked for a hot dog costume for bea. henry has been saying he wants bea to be a hot dog for the big night. i'm not big on getting her dressed up, but if i had seen one i probably would have snatched it up. (they did have a costume for child to be a ketchup bottle. what poor child wants to be ketchup for halloween - or do they just make those for people who have waited until 4 o'clock on halloween to get their kid a costume and there's nothing else to get?)
then. ah, then . . .

then we get home. i have two sleeping children in the car. i carry the girl into the house in her carseat. retrieve the boy but he wakes up. then i run upstairs to the bathroom. then i run back down. mad dash to get dinner started while bea is sleeping. then i notice the brown stuff all over the carpet. it had been raining most of the day. i assumed it was mud. i cleaned it up, put my shoes on the garage steps. get dinner going. go back in the garage. realize from the odor that was probably not mud on my shoe. great!!!!



and then that just unleashed all the craziness for the evening. matt working on a patina for a sculpture. i'm supposed to be photographing it. running in and out of the house making dinner taking photographs nagging henry letting the dog out taking photographs stirring dinner taking photographs (all the while bea is on my left hip - can't wait to see how the photos turn out). go to let dog in. she walks in i turn around to get back to dinner. realize she has something (this is going to be gross walk away now if you want) . . .



hanging out of her butt!!!!! i think i screamed in frustration. poor dog. i shoo her back out the door until i can get a grasp on the chaos inside. run onto the porch repeatedly telling henry NOT to open the door, bea crying her eyes out because i am outside and she is inside, me extracting the grass or whatever off mason's bum with elasti-girl arms because ewwwwww disgusting!!!! done. scrub scrub scrub hands. pick up bea tell henry for the 30th time that no he cannot have a gummy eyeball before dinner stir dinner take photographs back inside check on dinner realize that clean house i peacefully enjoyed last night while sipping wine, knitting, and watching 30 rock no longer exists. amazing. AMAZING! what can happen in about 2 hours!

here is where the problem started. i don't employ a chef.

okay, seriously. matt cooks most nights. he is a great cook. really really great. i am not. he has been so busy so i took over cooking for the week. and it was good and has been good. but i had planned for having leftovers the night he was doing the patina and that didn't happen as originally planned. so tonight i had this dinner planned. the one that was not that involved but a little too involved for me. what with all the other things i was involved in.

nights like this i just don't feel like a grown up. or that i can function well without matt. i know that really i can (function w/o matt (but would rather not). the grown-up thing totally eludes me), but tonight was not one of them.

so matt, thank you for stopping and picking up that giant bottle of wine. the house is in shambles and i'm okay with that. it's 8:30 - things have settled, one little is asleep in her bed and the other will soon be on his way. and the kitchen will be clean enough in no time.

amazing what can happen in an hour.