It was a day. Nothing special, nothing overly traumatic. Just another day in a long series of similar days, the mundaneness in and of itself more notable than anything.
An ordinary day, yet one that also hadn’t been that great. There were tears and tantrums, struggles over tooth brushing, three different kids with three different ideas for activities that were not compatible with one another. (Play in the driveway! Play in the backyard! Walk down the street to the park!) There were toys strewn everywhere inside and a floor that needed to be swept three days ago.
Of the three, the 18-month old was the crankiest. He acted frustrated and didn’t seem quite sure what it was he wanted. Except he clearly told me that he wanted more scrambled eggs with his lunch. (“Egg. Mo’.”) I filled up his plate, set it on the tray.
He looked at the plate. He looked at me. And in less than a half second, he threw it all on the floor.
I had a moment. (Just another day in a long series of similar days…) The cleaning-up of the scattered-everywhere scrambled eggs was now my job. My teeth clenched. I have a college degree! I wanted to scream, I graduated with honors and now here I am about to clean up this disaster of scrambled eggs at 11:18 in the morning? I have ideas, dang it! What gives?!?
Toddlers throw their food. I get it. It’s not that it overly surprised me exactly. I’ve been through this with two of them before. It’s more that as this all happened, in the span of a few seconds, I had another moment. I thought of all the “you’re going to miss this” phrases tossed out by sweet little old ladies (always sweet and old) as they reflect on this stage of life. They seem to forget the part about bending over for the umpteenth time to clean scrambled eggs off the floor. Cuddles are something to miss. Cleaning up what had previously been a (sort of) clean floor? Not so much. This day was not one to look back on fondly.
Read the rest over on the Twin Cities Moms Blog.