For the Love of Kids
FOR THE LOVE OF KIDS
Sometimes, they can get on your nerves and sometimes they can love you like no one else can and sometimes they can save you from the worst day ever-whether they are your own or someone else’s-kids can definitely make or break your day.
It was finally Friday of the worst possible week ever. The week that would never end, paper was piling up, the phone that didn’t stop ringing from that person who blamed you for all existence. The only salvation was that 5 o’clock was drawing nearer and you could taste that sweet drink being chilled by ice in a tall glass-home sweet home was never looking so good.
Driving home, singing that song that’s on the radio, at the top of your lungs, knowing only every other word, but not missing a beat-life is good. You hit all the green lights and the glass is within reach as you see your house in the distance.
Pulling into the drive, your child is in the window making air hand signals-looking up at him, thinking that he wants to play air tic-tac-toe, you put the car in park, look up at him and make your move-a bold “air” X—however, the child appearing unhappy to your move doesn’t signal back, you then change to an O, thinking that if you give him the X, he’ll be happy because he’ll have the better of the two players-ah yes; he wants to play and makes his next move, so you make yours. Now, should you go to the left or the right? You look up and see that the child’s hands are frantically moving and he is continuing to make his “air alphabet words”-obviously tic-tac-toe is not what he had in mind and there is some deeper, more intrusive code that must be broken to understand this message.
Confused and really looking forward to that tall chilled glass, you grab your purse and get out of the car and head towards the front door, hoping to be greeted with open arms and hugs. The hand is on the door knob and as you begin to turn it clockwise, your arm flailing child pulls open the door and the smoke billows out into the open air as if lusting for fresh air-it now occurs to you that the smart child in the window was “air writing” FIRE---trust me, it gets better.
Ascending the steps leading into the kitchen, the smoke is pretty heavy now and you’re wondering what is on fire, when you see the most attractive sight…your husband clad in two oven mitts, pot in one hand spatula in the other, digging out some sort of flaming substance from the oven. Again, I must state that although, it seems completely out of the question, that tall chilled glass has not left the mind completely.
peanuts for dinner. Waving a tea towel in front of the noisemaker long enough for your husband to remove the rest of the flaming nuts from the oven, the sound has seemed to dissipate.
As it turns out, the child decided that he didn’t want peanuts on Thursday so he put them in the oven, so no one else would eat them and so they would still be there when he was ready for them.
I have never laughed so hard in my life as I did that night, and for it not for the quick thinking man in the oven mitts, the situation could have been much worse. The drink was well worth the wait and the drive thru burgers weren’t that bad. Thank god for kids because they really do make you smile when you don’t think you have one in you.