I was getting everything ready to walk out the door. We had our Alabama Bloggers Monthly Meet-Up, and I needed to be there early to reserve the table.

Usually, the kids are visiting The Grandparents on Alabama Blogger Meet-Up days, and not by coincidence. But every now and then, I have a moment of questionable sanity and decide to take both of them with me. To a two hour lunch. With a bunch of other bloggers. Who do not usually bring their kids.

(I like to give other bloggers something to blog about, because I’m benevolent like that.)

So. I was packing up my entire house, as a mother has to do to attend a two hour lunch with two kids.

My last step was to fill Noah’s sippy cup.

I went to take the lid off, and Ali distracted me.

“Hey Momma – do you have any change that I can put in my bank?”

I looked up. When I did, the lid awkwardly popped off, sloshing a tiny bit of milk on the counter.

“Not right now. Plus, that’s your Missions Bank. According to Cubbies, you’re supposed to do things to help me out to earn money for that bank, remember?”

I wiped up the milk and refilled the cup.

“What can I do to help you?”

“I don’t need any help right now.”

I began reapplying the sippy cup lid. And as I did, I quickly discovered that the lid was quite faulty.

It flew out of my hand, knocking my grip off balance. I somehow managed to perform a One-Handed Rumba, which loosened the milk’s grip on the inside of the cup.

It hit me first.

My arm, my shirt, my jeans, my feet, my underthings…

Then it expanded it’s attack throughout the kitchen.

The counters, the floors, the crevices of the Keurig, the mail, the dishwasher, the kids, Anchorage, Boise, and a few convenient drops went ahead and placed themselves directly in the sink.

I stood there and experienced how wet the inside of a sippy cup must feel.

Ali stared at me, silently.

Noah stared at me, thirstily.

I didn’t say a word.

I simply walked out of the dairy-covered kitchen, dripped up the stairs, and changed every piece of clothing on my body.

A few minutes later, I walked back downstairs, still without words.

“Mommy! Why did you change clothes?”

“Seriously?”

I set to work. I unrolled paper towels like they were a slot machine lever and handed Ali the box of wet wipes.

“Please wipe up all of the milk spots on the floor.”

We diligently wiped and mopped and wiped some more, as Noah angrily waited for his milk to be restored.

Although I wiped at least 34 different surfaces, as I finished my work I knew that I would need to be okay with the fact that I was going to find dried milk spots for the next two weeks…or years.

I re-prepared to leave the house, now much later than I had intended.

And then I remembered.

So I went and found a handful of change.

“Thank you for helping me clean up the kitchen – here’s you some money for your Missions Bank.”

And I don’t care what Cubbies says – I won’t EVER enforce contingencies when she asks me for money for that bank.

13 thoughts on “If Chris had Been Home, I’d Have Yelled Taverna.

  1. Good morning… and great post. Made me laugh…sorry…but I think all moms have been there at one time or another. Your description was awesome…love the play by play.

  2. Blurg. I am almost positive that I’ve lived that moment a few times…except with juice. Blurg again, on your behalf.

  3. LOL. T has been making me let K have a cup without a lid because he says she needs to learn not to spill. So after cleaning up spills at breakfast AND lunch I tell him he is in charge of any and all spillage during dinner. This post made me glad that she doesn’t like milk!

  4. If I’ve had that kind of experience, I must have blocked it out of my mind. However, I do have repeated experiences of breaking glass in the kitchen, and it going EVERYwhere. Once was when I was cleaning one of my refrigerator shelves. It simply exploded in my hands. Another time was when a coffee cup jumped out of the cabinet and attacked me, the supper I was preparing on the counter, and the whole kitchen in general.

    At least if the kids find old juice or milk, they won’t die from ingesting it…So cheers! It can always be worse! Wait….

    1. Oh yikes. That is so much worse. I once had a pyrex baking dish explode into a gigantic pot of soup. It was a bad day. There were many tears.

  5. I’m always appalled when I find stuff that we haven’t had for weeks and then wonder how on earth it had possibly been on the counter/carseat/floor for that long without me noticing. Enjoy the years of milk spatter finds :-)

  6. ewwww no fun. especially having to come home and be paranoid about spotting died milk spots. I’d be one of those crazy moms looking even under the counters for rogue splashes of milk.
    You’re a good mom for remembering Ali’s request when you were trying to rush out the door!!

  7. Too funny—-we all have those moments, kids or not—where we have to eat our words. It just reinforces my belief that God loves to laugh, and teach us at the same time!

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