So, the Miracle spent the afternoon with a friend the other day. Headed off to the local water park. It was kind of spur of the moment. 2Moms had a few hours to ourselves. Is it just us, or do all parents suddenly forget how to be alone together after a few years of parenthood? Some of you are probably laughing at me right now and shouting “uh… NO!” But I bet a few others find yourselves just as befuddled as we do when faced with unexpected kid-free time. Do we run off to an R rated movie? Now there’s a novel idea. Do we make good use of the time and take care of projects that are impossible to tackle with a 7 year old careening off the walls all day? Well, nice plan, but…I don’t think so. Do we dump some of the good stuff into a blender filled with ice, “relax” and … Yikes! Do we even remember how? Deep breath. Okay, let’s give this a try.
NOT.
As we bustle about in the kitchen, a cheap bottle of red (jealous, perhaps, that we are choosing umbrella drinks over it?) escapes its rack and smashes all over the tiled kitchen floor, rocketing shards of green glass into every corner of the house and wasting no time in turning the untreated grout a deep, dark shade of crimson. Can you say “smithereens”, boys and girls? Now there’s a word I haven’t used since childhood.
Hmmm. Is this some kind of message from the universe?
Well, first we have to remove the immediate danger by sweeping up one or two gazillion pieces of glass. Gotta be extra thorough with this task since we have a kid in the house. How is it possible for glass to end up 20 feet away, under a chair, in another room – around a corner, no less? Defies the laws of physics, I tell you. Then we have to move large kitchen appliances around so that we can sop up liquid that might as well be red food coloring or Rit dye. All I can say is thank God we went with laminate flooring in the hallway – carpet would have been a total goner. Half a roll of paper towels and several wet rags later, we’re looking at sticky tile with a completely new shade of grout. After briefly debating the option of spilling another bottle on the other half of the kitchen floor and just changing out all of the appliances and towels to a color that matches, we realize that we are going to have to scrub and bleach the grout immediately, or the damage will be permanent. The creators of the Bleach Pen have my undying gratitude. In the process of all of this we make a clean spot, and in the immortal words of Ripley from Aliens “now we’re gonna have to do the whole thing.” And once it’s clean, well, now we really should go ahead and grab that can of grout protector from under the cupboard and put it to its proper use, right? So that the next time we fumble the bottle, we can rest assured that the grout is properly treated.
Three or four hours later, we have the proverbial kitchen floor so clean you could eat off of it. Cupboard doors are spotless. Walls are wiped down. But no Midori sour or toasted almond martini anywhere in sight. And no “relaxation” whatsoever. And who’s that at the door? Oh, of course. The Miracle is home now. What a GREAT day she had! The Water Park was GREAT. The food was GREAT. The candy and treats that we never let her eat when she’s with us were GREAT GREAT GREAT! “Why do you guys look so tired?”
I’m really trying to find the moral of this story. Maybe the moral is to buy red wine in a shatterproof container – they sell wine in boxes now, right? J Maybe the moral is switch to white. Or give up drinking. Or get faster reflexes. Or store everything in plastic. I hope I figure it out soon because a friend who was recently blessed with a Miracle of her own is proposing a trade-off of “date nights” – we’ll watch her kid for one or two evenings a month and then they return the favor by entertaining ours while we get to spend some quality grown-up time. Sounds great! Her hubby just returned home from his second tour in Iraq, so they deserve it. We deserve it too. Just not sure we have the energy to take on the next room.
