Mash Potatoes & the Moon

So it’s been a bit since my last entry. Sometimes I just feel like life is moving at warp speed. Way to fast for even “Scottie” to beam me in. I just miss the ship completely. I guess that’s why I was in a poor mood the other night. It had been one of those days where things were busy and the kids who although were good, were crazy and talkative and just plain loud all day. I think my patience and tolerance had dipped but boy I had no idea how low.

I made dinner – meatloaf, garlic bread and mash potatoes. Garrett has always been a difficult kid when it comes to food. He eats from the beige food group and if it falls outside of that little known food group – come hell or high water it’s a knock down, thrown down of a show to get him to eat it. We decided several years ago to have the 1 bite rule. Deal is you take one bite and if you don’t like it you don’t have to eat it. It helps in getting Garrett to just try things. It can still be a struggle but he’ll usually at least take one bite. Well – not tonight. You’d think he’d have had issues with the meatloaf since it’s not really beige – nope, it was the mash potatoes. This was one of those moments where I just thought he must be messing with me. What kid doesn’t like or won’t at least try mash potatoes????? Come on – it’s a French fry mushed up. Seriously!!! Well these mashed potatoes had cheese in them and that was his issue. So here we are at dinner, I’m already in a piss poor mood, I’ve spent the last ½ hour making dinner and it’s Sunday night – our family round the table, spread the love time. Ken’s eating, Connor is devouring, and Garrett and I are just staring at each other. Then the tears well up in his eyes and it’s as if I asked him to kill the dog or something. Total emotion. Bottom line – he still needs to take a bite. It’s like a power play…if you give in over this then he’ll work you next time as well. To make a long story short, over much drama Garrett finally took a bite, promptly told us it was disgusting and spit it in the trash. Now I’m just pissed! I got up from the table, grabbed all the plates off the table, condiments, drinks, slammed everything in the sink for cleaning, opened and closed (loudly) all cabinets and doors while putting things away. Yup, I threw my own tantrum. Ken told Garrett he needed to apologize. Garrett looks at me and said he was sorry. You know what went through my head – that I wanted to tell him, “Whatever!” I just didn’t care, I was too mad. He later came up and apologized again, in earnest and I still didn’t want to accept it. So where is the funny in all of this? It dawned on me. Who was the real 5 yr old in the house? It wasn’t Ken (age 41), it wasn’t Connor (age 5), it wasn’t even Garrett (age 9) – it was me! Ha! They say that kids make you feel young again…uh huh! They sure do!

On a much lighter and truly funny note we have a story from our little Connor. Last night after the bath he wanted to get into his skull & crossbones robe. He cracks me up running around in this thing. It’s black with white skulls & bones on it. I think Connor thinks he’s a toughie in it. Ken put him to bed and instead of wearing having Connor wear his PJ’s, he asked to stay in his robe and Ken let him. Well at about 5am this morning, our little man came stumbling in our room and hopped into bed. I left at around 5:45 to go swim and left Ken and Connor snuggled together holding hands (a requirement from Connor when he gets in our bed). When I got home, Ken told me that when he woke up, Connor had turned himself around in the bed and so that his head was at Ken’s feet and Connor’s butt (bare underneath the robe) was exposed and in Ken’s face! Nothing like a morning moon to get you going!