Cheerful Abundance

Friday, my husband played nurse, going to the dentist with me and then letting me nap while he picked the kids up from school. He wrestled them into their ballet gear (not an easy task), and I rallied from my dental trauma to head out the door with them to ballet class. He pulled into the parking lot with minutes to spare, and we jumped out to unbuckle the kids and start the hustle from car to dance floor, which includes threading through a pile of other dance families, finding a spot to peel them out of the winter gear, and getting ballet slippers on them. “Got the ballet bag?” I asked my husband, who stopped and stared at me. “I thought …. you had it,” he asked back, and then we both groaned.

Ballet bag was slung over the back of a kitchen chair. In our kitchen.

Luckily, their ballet teacher is pretty cool, and she let them dance in their stocking feet, while we lurked outside the studio, kicking ourselves. But we shook it off, rationalizing that it happens, sometimes, right?

Saturday, they had basketball, and my lovely husband let me sleep in (post-dental pain) and took the kids off for their 9AM game. At 9:05, the phone rang, and it was him, sitting in the parking lot of the gym, sheepishly asking me to ‘doublecheck’ the basketball schedule posted next to our calendar. The one that, it turns out, says their game was at 10AM. I don’t envy him, entertaining them for an hour in the car while they waited. I suspect he may have taken them to a local doughnut shop, but in a successful, long-term marriage, some details are better left unknown.

Sunday, one of the kids requested home made macaroni and cheese for dinner. Neither of them eat as much as I would like them too, and both are very skinny, so when they request food, I really try to come through for them.Hoping to avoid our weekend of stupidity losing streak, I even went so far as to make my husband grate the cheese (to avoid taking a knuckle off) and had a great time cooking with one of my kids while I stirred the spices into the sauce, and dumped the noodles into the sauce and then into a pan, all ready to bake. This recipe is so, so good, people, and even if you halve it,  it is still plenty for 4 people, plus leftovers. But I digress. So there I was, feeling pretty super-mommyesque, with the homemade macaroni and cheese, when I realized that I forgot to actually add the cheese to the sauce. Genius!

Yesterday, I did two loads of laundry without adding the laundry soap. Then I tossed a load in the dryer and forgot to turn it on. My winning streak continues! I think it is the weather. I think this long, long winter, dragging through the end of March, it messes with me internally, and I am probably  vitamin-D starved at this point. Does that have anything to do with absentmindness and general dumbness? I would Google it, but we both know that Google would just tell me I have cancer.

I am about to go change the sheets on the beds. Wish me luck, that I don’t accidentally throw the pillows in the garbage, or fold up the dog currently snoring on my bed, and stash her in the linen closet.