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| Monday, July 23, 2007 |
| Perfect Ending |
| Wretched! Filthy! Mud-laden! I roll up in my new car expecting them to be ready. Expecting the shouts of joy and thrill emitting from their underdeveloped vocal chords. I expect our routine of 'look what I learned to do in the pool today'. Rather, two greatly disturbing orphan children run at me from a puddle of mud the size of a lake! They are doused from head to toe! The smaller of the mudmonsters cries out, MOM MOM MOM!!! Come see the mud village! I am in shock! Mud village? And you are? Oh, of course I take their mudcaked hands into my own and traverse the land of the many grasses around the sea of muddy waters, and find a whole architecturally sound city creatively erected by buckets and plastic shovels. I can't hide the fact that I'm impressed. How did you shape the little windows? Where did you get the idea to braid grass to connect the 'buildings' like telephone lines? Where did you get your inspiration? I am invited to 'swim' in the great muddy waters. To this I shrug. I may be an old mom just getting home from work, I may be dressed in business slacks and heels, but I'm not above indulging my five and seven year old sons. I slip off my heels and surprise them all by jumping feet first into the slop. Uch. I didn't realize how deep it would be. I'm up to my knees in cool mud. Everyone is laughing and guffawing. That's all right. I play it off by grabbing up a handful and making a pie that I subsequently lob at my eldest. Hey! He shouts. He clambers into the mud, using all of his ten year old bulk to topple me. It works. He is a very strong young man. Defeated, I pat the mud around me. In come the other two boys. We laugh and splash and play for a few moments. Then comes a nagging inside my head. That adult bothersome voice residing in my temporal lobe. Home, it calls, home, you need to make dinner.. I remember the new car. Its leather seats. I remember how upset my husband was when I spilled the tiniest amount of coffe into the cupholder, the little splashed drops that had landed unnoticed on the passenger side, marring the beautiful grey leather. Suddenly I'm worried. How do I get the four of us home and NOT muck up the car? I hear myself ordering the boys out of the puddle. I hear myself telling them to put on their sandals. We trudge to the car, I nudge the kids past. We'll walk this day, I say. But, MOM, we're all wet and dirty. I'm sorry.. next time we will have to remember an extra set of clothes. Luckily the babysitter only lives a half block away. We rush home and rinse ourselves with the hose in the front yard. Passersby stare in awe as our pink flesh emerges. We strip in the foryer, the boys go get in the shower one by one, I put on fresh clothes and fetch the car. I giggle when my husband asks how my day was. I sigh, perfect, I say. |
posted by katmandusuekookachoo @ 5:43 PM  |
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