The Matron arrives home close to 1 pm, after the usual classroom dramas, including the hundred million late assignments that students needed to discuss, right now.
Classroom technology felled her. Think Othello was a blood bath? This is nothing compared to the Matron versus the overhead projector.
She is hungry, tired.
But alas, she also procreated.
The Matron cuts and slices: carrots, basil, onion, curry. Thus, she bulks up the exotic can of split pea soup.
Stryker toils by her side: eggs, butter, cheese. Thus, he begins the omelette.
At 1:12, the Matron sits down to her steaming bowl of soup. Breakfast is a distant memory, somewhere before 8 am.
"Mom! Can you do the toast! Please! I'm afraid I'll burn this!"
Stryker's culinary skills are just emerging, meaning he can do one thing at a time.
The Matron snaps up bread, swift as a bee. She's proud of her son's acumen with heat and a skillet, happy to lend that hand.
She grabs a plate and pours milk, too, other complex mama skills.
"Mama! I have to go to the bathroom!"
Merrick staggers past, clutching his penis, a dam in Holland. Wait, he's waddling.
"Mama! Poop too! Come on!"
Oh, a multi-themed party!
Because the bathroom holds monsters and fiends that only the Matron can stave off (ah, Merrick, if you had seen your mother thrash with a DVD earlier today. . . you wouldn't be quite so confident), the Matron stands outside the door with just the right attitude.
From the bathroom: "Don't look at me! Don't open the door! Are you still there? Are you waiting?"
Matron: "Not a peep. Right here. Stationary."
From the kitchen: "Mom! Mom! Mom! I am SO sorry! I just knocked over the whole thing of milk. Oh My God. Help!"
Bathroom: "Don't leave me! Don't leave me!"
The Matron assures Merrick that she is glued to that door and silently whips down the stairs to toss towels in the kitchen, racing back up just in time to respond appropriately to this:
"Don't look at me! Don't open the door! Are you still there! Are you waiting?"
The bottom is wiped, the milk mopped.
The Matron microwaves her soup.
Jekyll is standing by the door. The Matron opens the door but before she can shove him out, he pees. Scruffy bolts by and soars out the door, heading (the Matron hopes) for his various escape routes.
The Matron wipes up pee.
Suddenly the house is filled with a scream so loud that tea cups rattle in China.
Scarlett runs into the kitchen: "I stubbed my toe on the radiator!"
The Matron rolls her eyes and hauls that child onto her lap. There, there. Let me see it. Oh my that must really hurt. Do you think you can self-regulate any time soon?
"Mom! Scruffy is over at Eva's!"
Because we all know how the Matron feels about this dog: she puts on her coat and boots and retrieves Satan's Familiar who has just eaten the wild cat's dinner on the neighbor's porch. The Matron understands this dinner will be deposited on the hallway floor in about two hours.
The Matron returns to the kitchen where Scarlett decides the toe requires an ice pack and Merrick wants his temperature taken--not to be outdone.
When the Matron attempts protest, the child falls to pieces: "Feel my fowehead! I have a feber!"
The thermometer disproves this theory.
Scarlett's ice pack is buffered by a washcloth. Too much cold.
Stryker enters, in the midst of some strange project. "Mom! Can you tie a knot, right here, now?"
The Matron's fingers become giant sausages. Can you even see that string in this light? She searches through drawers for her reading glasses.
The Matron microwaves her soup. It is 2:20.
The phone rings. Scarlett leaps: "Hello? Hi Daddy!"
Starving prisoners of war have nothing on the Matron. She clutches that bowl of soup: "Tell him I can't talk -- I'm eating."
Scarlett rolls her eyes and reports with utter airy disdain: "She can't talk. You know how she is when she's eating."
23 comments:
"Oh, a multi-themed party!" Ha. You're perfect. Loved this.
I hope you got to finish your soup.
We live so much the same life ('cept you write about it much better!). That student? Had her. But it was a He. That lunch? Tried to have it. But it was a salad. That "don't look at me" kid? I have him, fer sure.
Occasionally stretches just for the sake of a story? In my house it is referred to as "entirely true but exaggerated for comic effect."
It does sound like it was one of those days! The soup sounds yummy, I'm glad you finally got some.
If just once I could actually make and drink a cup of tea, all on the first try, without interruptions, I would be happy.
And I think my life is tough with one four (soon-to-be-five) year old?! Oh honey, you need to lock yourself in the bathroom with a stack of trashy magazines, a box of fine chocolates, and pitcher of margaritas. Get in that tub and don't come out until you are a prune!
You're just the worst wife and mother ever, honestly. Not talking to your husband. Really!
I feel your pain. Now, quick! Eat. Lord knows when you'll get a chance again...
"his penis...a dam in holland."
up until that point, all your food descriptions were making me hungry.
but after that line, i just felt like laughing.
You are a hoot! I doubt you stretched a single detail because I live with 3 kids and it is EXACTLY LIKE THAT too often.
I had to just die at Scarlett's remark--"You know how she is when she's eating." Because the complete calm and fortitude you display throughout the rest of the day and in all sorts of crisis is just...what?
I'm laughing with you. It's all you can do to keep from crying some days.
I'm going with what karen said. You deserve it! ;p
That someone else has a life like this - I feel so understood. Hope you njoyed your soup ;-)
This is just priceless! Why? Why is it ALWAYS when we're trying to eat? Don't they know that if we don't eat our food, we eat THEM?!?
You poor thing. I am sorry that I am laughing because of your humorous way of describing these scenes. It is sort of like a situation comedy, but much better and like real life!
No one but a mother would have a clue what it is like to be one and have all the drama that comes with it. Kids are priceless, but sometimes you would give them away for free, especially the one in the bathroom who doesn't want you to look, but stay put anyway. Somehow that sounds awfully familiar and takes me back many years.
Things don't get less dramatic at work, do they? My goodness, have you thought about getting a job teaching less demanding students, or are there no such people?
i can't stand it. this was to perfect. why do they always have to poop when we are getting ready to eat. WHY????
Those with kids who poop before or after a meal are lucky...my kindgom for a dinner that I didn't have to get up in the middle of to go and help/oversee/wipe a bottom.
I've been known to take a bath, with a book and glass of wine, for an hour or so due to evenings like that. hmmm...that's been happening a lot these days...must buy more wine!!
I totally understand where you're coming from with this, and I only have two. I can't remember the last time I sat down to eat and actually ate the entire meal without having to get up and do/fetch/make/pour something else for one of the wee ones.
I love this post! It's my life.
My favorite line: "Do you think you can self-regulate any time soon?"
Brilliant.
And we wonder why we can't remember important appointments, people's names and what we had for dinner last night!!
You nailed it Matron!
I'm exhausted just reading that. And relieved those hectic days are behind me.
How did I (how do you) do it?
You didn't get the memo? Muthas aren't allowed to eat.
Thank god someone else's sustenance is so low on the family priority scale.
I've found myself hiding upstairs in my room with my food so they can't find me!
hahahaha-- very cute story. glad I found you- ok to link?
be back soon.
Linda
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