Grown-up Time

Once you have kids, even the simplest pleasures will take monumental effort, and even the best laid plans will go to shit... literally.

A few weeks ago we had one of the first truly warm evenings of the season so Jason and I decided after the girls went down for the night we would build a fire in our little backyard fire kettle and relax with a glass of wine.  Oh how foolish we are. 

A few nights prior to this plan being hatched Maggie had started a habit of coming downstairs after bedtime - sneaking downstairs is really more like it - just to relay some insignificant piece of information like, "Mama, I'm sorry."  (sorry for what?  doesn't matter, she's just sorry.... can't get in trouble for saying sorry, right?)  That night Jason asked me, "What if Maggie comes downstairs while we're outside?"  And my answer was, "Well that'll learn her won't it!"  But when will I learn that when I get all cavalier about something I always suffer the consequences.  I am a firm believer in karma and cosmic equality - and "God must have a sense of humor" - that sort of stuff, so you'd think I'd have figured it out by now.

Armed with two baby monitors we head outside and settle in, fire started, wine in hand, and finally I breath the deep sigh of a contented, exhausted mama.  Suddenly one thought comes crashing down on me like a wrecking ball.  "You've GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!" 

Our house is a two story with a walk-out basement so we were sitting on the concrete patio a level down from the first floor when I heard, "Mom, Mama, Mommy!!!!  I've got to go poo poo!" cried from the living room window above us.  And then, "Mama, I have poo poo in my panties, IHADANACCIDENT!!! WAHHHH!"  Not only is she out of bed, but she crapped her pants.  See what I mean?  Cosmic.

I drag myself upstairs and into the house and she's got the saddest look on her face and says, "Mama, I couldn't find you!  I have to go poo poo and I couldn't find you and now I have poo poo in my panties!"  and she's sooooo upset.  The kid does not like to have accidents - in fact she doesn't really like to do anything "wrong", she's quite the perfectionist.

I get her to the bathroom and cleaned up, I tuck her back in and give her some extra kisses, and I'm back down at the fire in a little less than ten minutes.  I know what's coming this time so I'm carefully listening to Maggie's baby monitor when sure enough, not three minutes later I hear the very faint fluttering of blankets being pulled back and three minutes after that, "Mom, I heard a noise," being whispered from the window above us.  Now I breath the deep sigh of a defeated Mama.  "OK Maggie, would you like to come sit with us by the fire for a little while?"

We bundled her up in a beach towel and took her outside where she sat quietly in my lap and watched the fire, periodically commenting on a bird or a bug or spark from the blaze.  We sat like that for about thirty minutes, well past her bedtime, but the longer we sat the better it got.  My sweet Maggie cuddling on my lap in front of a springtime fire is not the worst way to spend a Tuesday night.  So even without my glass of wine and grown-up time, I breathed the sigh of the contended, lucky...HAPPY Mama.  Grown-up time will just have to wait another 18 years I guess.