Water Dish

I carried Monkey to the kitchen for dinner today, and called Turtle to follow. She scurried in as I sat Monkey in her highchair, and made a beeline for the pets’ water dish. I fumbled with the straps to Monkey’s highchair, saying, “Turtle, don’t touch. No ma’am, don’t touch. Turtle. Turtle!” That girl did not even once turn her head, and I know she knows what “don’t touch” means. Splash splash splash, both hands in the water dish, water puddling around her, she was having a little one-woman party. I was still trying to strap Monkey in – I wouldn’t dare walk away from the high chair without securing her first (she is a little monkey after all) – and so I took a deep breath and in my sternest voice said, “TURTLE MARIA!”

Still nothing. She doesn’t know that when someone calls you sternly using your middle name, it means you are in Big Trouble. She doesn’t even know her middle name yet. I didn’t think it would work, but it was worth a try. Plus I thought it would make me giggle a little, and it did. Here I am, using the oldest, most tired parent cliché in the book. My hair is ratty and I’m wearing the same shorts I wore yesterday. There’s a half-eaten container of baby yogurt in the fridge that I stuck in there yesterday after the girls’ lunch, thinking I’d eat it later or at least cover it up or something. But I haven’t and now it’s making the whole fridge smell like blueberries, at least until last week's fruit overpowers this week's yogurt. There are plastic baggies on the countertop with hair in them – I trimmed the girls’ bangs this morning as they sat in their highchairs after breakfast and saved a few locks from their “first hair cut.” But I haven’t gotten around to actually doing anything with the hair yet, and so it sits.

I would be lying if I said the disorder doesn't eat away at me. But I really try hard to let it go, and to make myself giggle when I can. I know one day in the future I will have a perfectly orderly, sadly empty home. So I try to embrace the chaos and smile at my little Turtle Maria splashing away with her favorite toy.