When you give a mother a potato chip....

  It has been a very busy summer for us here. Between family trips, summer rec and swimming-there hasn't been a whole lot of time for writing.  I do have quite a number of half finished posts in my drafts file-I just haven't had much time or patience to finish them.  You'd think that because of recent events-(ESPECIALLY because of recent events) I'd have written post after post. Because I have had nothing but time on my hands...You see, for the past three weeks, I have been stuck at home-actually more like stuck on the couch..STUCK ON THE COUCH and at the total MERCY of my four children.

  Oh, it started innocently enough. There was a request for snacks.  Now, having grown up in a house where the word "snack" was..well almost considered a sin (my mother did not believe in eating between meals.) If you insisted that you were hungry, her stock answer was to "have an apple"..an apple.   O.k. fine-apples are good..but come on!  When you are outside with your friends and they are all eating a variety of salty or sweet treats...you kind of feel deprived..sitting there with your slightly bruised apple..It led to an adolescence..a CHUBBY adolescence of indulging in candy and snack cakes.  So,  I decided to do things differently with my kids.  A couple of them are very picky eaters. We are talking a menu of about five things   So, if any of them request a new kind of snack or junk food. I let them try it.  Funny thing is-because I am open to having junk in the house...they choose yogurt or granola bars as equally as they choose chips or candy.  Except maybe for Oscar-who would live on "Flavor blasted Gold Fish" if I let him.  But that's another story.

  Anyway, there I was in the kitchen getting my girls their requested potato chips..when I noticed the front of one of the kitchen drawers was very loose. sigh..Alright..I didn't just notice it...it has been loose for months..and I had been meaning to do something about it...eventually..I happened to notice it was "more" loose than it had been.  "Lil..don't touch that..it looks really loose".."It's o.k. Mama..I'm just fixing it.."  "No honey, I think we need Papa to take care of it when he gets home" I also happened to notice that the potato chips looked really good...extra crispy and a little burnt around the edges..so as I was stuffing a handful into my mouth Lily said.. "No..really Mama..I can fix it.." at that moment BAM! the drawer front came down like  guillotine on my naked foot. I fell to the floor...bits of chips and expletives spewing simultaneously from my mouth.  A potato laden stream of curses that would make anyone blush...if they understood what I was screaming. Scaring the crap out of my daughters...especially Lily who felt horrible about it.  So of course my first (coherent) thought was to try and comfort her.."It's o.k. honey...sometimes people yell scary things when they hurt themselves...I'm sorry I scared you..it was an accident..I should have fixed it months ago..it isn't your fault.." I even tried to "walk it off"...big mistake. Because here I am three weeks later stuck on the couch looking like an extra from "Star Wars"

Oh it hasn't been all bad...my kids have all been extra "helpful"..it's just that they tend to get easily distracted..Like when vacuuming-it is amazing how clean a 12 inch space can get when you don't actually move the vacuum from the place it is standing....Or folding laundry-"Oscar, why is the laundry in a twisted pile on the table?" "You told me to put it there.".."O.k...but do you think you could fold it?" "Sure Mama.."  and off he went..away from the pile of laundry .. Thankfully, Omar has been able to take a few days off here and there-so things have been getting done.  Although he thinks it is absolutely hysterical to leave advertisements for elderly exercises and scooters where I can find them..sigh...in the basket of my kneeling walker.
  I have to say that although it has been hard-the herd has done pretty well.  Sure, they still ask me for everything that they need (even with Omar sitting right next to me) but they have also been forced into doing some new things. I can't really complain that there is peanut butter all over the kitchen-because Oscar decided to try and make his own lunch...or that there are crumbs everywhere-because they have all learned to get their own snacks..or laundry piled on the table-because they all now know how to run a load-AND put it in the dryer.  Sometimes I take on too much.  Not because I don't think my kids can do anything...sigh..but because I like to do things my way. I just didn't realize how much that could hold them back-stop them from trying.

  I have an appointment with the doctor next week.  Hopefully I will be done with this cast.  As Sammy so aptly put "I'm getting kind of tired of your broken foot" sigh... Necessity is a mother...on so many levels....just don't feed her potato chips.