Blogging Keeps Me Sane

When the Baby was 10 days old the Genius Husband went back to work. The Baby would sleep most of the morning away as newborns usually do, and as a result and I could get breakfast and school out of the way before she woke up. That was until one morning recently when I slept in a little and she woke up a little early and I found myself with an infant that needed feeding and two small children that needed feeding and trying to do it all at the same time. The Boy wanted a fried egg, and I thought to myself, well that’s faster to make than porridge and since they were really hungry it sounded like a good idea. That was until I remembered that however handy a sling is for nursing and baby holding while getting things done, hot oil next to tender newborn baby’s head is not such a great idea. But I had already promised eggs, and as anyone who tends to children knows, changing your mind is not an option unless you have nerves of steel, being a little bit deaf helps too so you don’t have to listen to the wails of disappointment. On this particular morning my nerves were anything but steely, so I nursed the Baby, and bought some time with apples, and oranges, and bananas.

Finally she was done nursing and I put her down in her seat, knowing that I only had a few minutes before she cried to be picked up since she was still awake. As the eggs finished cooking, sure enough she started fussing and so I started hurrying to get things on plates. As I tried to transfer the first egg from the pan to the plate, a sizzle of hot oil jumped out at me and landed on my hands. I am a big baby about grease burns, something that the Genius Husband likes to remind me of as he, with his calloused work hardened hands, flips tortillas in a pan with his fingers. I flinched and screamed and jumped involuntarily dropping the egg on the floor in the process.

At this point the wailing from the baby reached that particular pitch of frantic desperation that means pick me up NOW. Yelling at the Girl to stay out of the kitchen as they both gawked at the spectacle of spattered egg yolk and oil in random patterns on the linoleum, I slipped and slid my way around them to pick up the Baby.

Now I had a screaming baby in one hand, breakfast about to burn in the frying pan, a slippery gooey floor and two short people climbing over each other in their burning desire to see and experience it all.

With the Baby firmly tucked under one arm, face down, I turned my body so that it was in between her and the stovetop and keeping a distance of an arms length between me and the pan, I quickly transferred the rest of the eggs to plates. Just as the last egg slid off the spatula and onto the plate the Baby belched and vomited breast milk all over the floor, though first making sure to get it all over my hand the side of my robe and my toes. I was now trapped between the slippery egg mess on one side and the mucousy vomit goo on the other yelling at my children to get back as they ran to examine the new puddles.

Some how, and I don’t remember how, I got the mess cleaned up, the Baby quieted, my feet wiped off and the children seated and eating. With a sigh of relief I turned to my water bottle and took a swig. That’s when some water went down my windpipe and I choked, and spewed water all over my freshly cleaned kitchen floor as I sputtered and coughed my way to drawing breath again.

All I could think as I wiped up the mess was, “I so have to blog about this.”