Back To Life, Back to Reality

It's back to life as usual this week, in all its grocery-shopping and meal-making glory!

We had a lovely little staycation last week, if I do say so myself. My dear husband took last week off from work so that I and my bruised butt could be rescued from painful tasks such as driving the carpool and wrangling a three-year-old. But if you think being on the injured reserve list exempts you from further incident (even whilst recuperating), allow me to enlighten you.

You may, perhaps, be standing at the bottom of the stairs in your home, pausing only to look adoringly at one of your children while she plays nicely by herself. You may even pat her head lovingly before you turn to go up said stairs and see objects flying at you.

This will probably be because you have decided to decorate the landing on the stairs with a small round tablecloth-covered table, which greatly interests your new rapidly-growing kitten (do not be fooled by his cute and innocent appearance in the picture). And when he takes off from underneath the table, the tablecloth will come with him, thereby sending the table (and the flowers on top of it) hurtling down the stairs toward your shin.

Another thing you are not exempt from is temper tantrums and the fallout thereof. For example, you may be caught in the crossfire if your six-year-old should happen to have a meltdown because her older sister tattled on her for using too much product in her hair one morning (not that there is any resulting parental punishment, mind you).

Then when she unequivocally refuses to go to school that day, but changes her mind after her father leaves with her siblings for school, I ask you, who will have to take her to school? The fact that you have not been driving a vehicle because you injured your delicate sitting device will not bail you out of this one.

And, as if that cat has not caused enough trouble, he may also get the hankering to take off like a speeding bullet but instead plow right into your OTHER shin, nothing but cat skull against shinbone, making a sickeningly loud cracking sound. This will give you matching shin bruises.

Despite all this, it was nice to live life at a slowed-down pace and even garner some time to myself while everyone else was at gymnastics. Alone. At home. Just me. A very strange concept, indeed.

In closing, I would like to attempt to revamp the definition of the word torture as follows:

torture [tawr-cher] - noun: pain or suffering caused by someone who has temporarily lost the ability to bend over having to helplessly witness an increasing volume of items on the floor, which do not belong on the floor, but simultaneously living in a house with four other people, who couldn't care less if there are things on the floor that do not belong on the floor.