Walnuts

All things ebb and flow like a season and parenting is no exception. Having spent a solid two years in the season of Keeping Pook Alive, we’ve at last moved forward and are now in the season of Keeping Boogie From Killing Us All.

I’ve already lamented that my sole hope for a sane and calm child has vanished. That ship has sailed. The real question is, can I survive as Tropical Storm Boogie not only makes landfall but creates some sort of permanent ecosystem? It’s only 1:22 in the afternoon, but y’all… I am so dang tired.

Today is an average day. Melissa dropped Bean at school on her way to work at 7:15am. I had the boys and the littles, as we call them, to get dressed and fed and out the door. It’s also a balmy 9° here at 8am, so leaving requires snow boots and parkas and gloves and scarves and a partridge in a pear tree. But hey! We did it this morning! I even managed to get two loads of laundry washed and the dishwasher unloaded before we headed out the door at 8:15. Pook and Boogie waddle like the world’s shortest abominable snowmen in their gear. It’s adorable, which helps since I have to take most of it off in about 15 feet to strap them into their car seats.

Drop the boys off. Grab a coffee at my favorite drive thru stand. Head to the pharmacy to pick up everyone’s med refills, where Boogie insisted on rearranging all the socially distanced furniture in order to (scream it with me now) SIT NEXT TO SISSYYYYY! Delivered Melissa’s meds to her office. Came home, got Pook on the bus to her special needs preschool and made a plan to keep the Booginator occupied while I made cookies for the big kids as an after school treat. Watched this plan fail spectacularly. Boogie drove his tractor through the toilet bowl which his brothers had forgotten to flush. Boogie played in the dog food bowl. Boogie stuck his bare hand into the Kitchenaid bowl and licked raw eggs off his fingers. I’m not sure if we’re all gonna get E. coli or if he’s getting Salmonella, but today’s round of amoxicillin is on the house.

Between batches of cookies I managed to fold all the laundry and I count it a success that I only burned one batch when I got lost in the technicolor labyrinth that is Bean’s room. (Rather than tossing them, I saved them for HER afternoon snack because I was making the bed she forgot to make.) All of this with my not-so-tiny tornado at my hip peppering me with questions and stealing anything he likes from his siblings rooms while I put laundry away. I rescued an unwrapped Blowpop, dad’s little screaming goat statue, Pokémon cards and a bag of hair ties. The kid doesn’t even have hair. Obviously, he’s gonna need to marry rich.

I was cleaning the kitchen and eating one of Bean’s extra-brown cookies while Boogie chased me around the kitchen with a broom. “I clean!” he insists. “I help too!” It’s a lovely thought, but three year olds aren’t the most efficient cleaners, you know? I’ve already swept the kitchen twice today. Boogie picks up everything he can get with the broom and helpfully stacks it on the counter for me.

I’m wiping counters, still munching on my cookie and swipe a stray chocolate chip that was on the counter without even really thinking about it. I did, however, think about it a whole lot once I bit into it, because I quickly realized it wasn’t a chocolate chip but rather a piece of dog food Boogie had found on the floor. You’re probably thinking I spit it out, cookie and all. But man… These are Candied Bacon & Chocolate Chip Cookies. The dog food was already pulverized. These cookies are good and I didn’t get this figure by throwing out good cookies. So I pretended it was a walnut and just kept chewing. Then I swept the kitchen again.

Is it illegal to auction kids off on Etsy? He’s super handmade. Just asking. You know, for a friend.