A Pint of Ice Cream: maybe Rice Dream

Surprise, surprise! Here I was happily sending my gripes out into cyberspace, thinking no one but my cute sister was reading them, when lo and behold- I find out at least two other people in the universe have read my blog- all on the same day. Well, this presents a bit of a problem for me. First of all, one of the two people was a guy and apparently they don't want to read about the lady doctor. Second of all, although I'm sure my diatribes are generally entertaining, they are also somewhat negative. This would be fine since my intention is to have a cathartic purging of whatever happens to be pissing me off on a given day. However, if my fellow MySpace residents are actually coming here to get to know the me that is now, I don't want them to think that all I ever do is bitch. Because I'm not one. And I don't. Also, I guess somebody was traumatized by certain references in my last blog (read it- you'll know which ones they are) and I promised a G- well at least a PG- rating from now on. So the problem is finding the time to sit down and recount the funny stuff that happens being a mom of 6. There is a lot of it. And not sounding like I hate being a mom of 6. Which I don't. But children will push your patience to the utmost limit and sometimes you have two choices. Laugh, or cry into a pint of your favorite ice cream. Sometimes I do both. I must look like a raving lunatic.

Today Monster Truck (2) decided that it would be fun to dump uncooked rice onto the kitchen floor. Now, I'm not sure if this was part of his continuing quest to figure out how to eat uncooked rice, or if he just liked the soothing rainstick sound that pouring rice makes as it hits the ground and scatters in all directions. Whichever it may be, I caught him methodically dumping handfulls of rice out of the container directly onto the floor. I scolded him, he took off before I could make him help clean it up, and I grabbed a broom. I swept the rice into a pile (luckily there wasn't that much of it this time), and I began looking for the dustpan. The Pinkiest(4) had absconded with it a few days earlier and therefore I could not find it. So I thought, "That's ok. I'll just leave it here for a little while until I find the dustpan. The kids will see that it has been swept into a pile and will know to leave it alone." I should really check to see if there is some sort of a gas leak in the house somewhere because I must have been completely stoned to have had this thought come out of my brain. Had I been sober, I would have known that although the rice would have been completely invisible to my kids if I had asked them to sweep it up, and they would have insisted it was not actually there- even as it was sticking to their feet while they ran in and out of the kitchen, bringing it with them onto the carpet in the living room; by the simple act of leaving it swept into a neat little pile, I was not only making it visible to their selectively blind eyes, I was creating a veritable rice Disneyland- right there- in our very own kitchen. So it was not long after that, that I entered the kitchen to find Mr. Yuke (3), carefully resifting the pile through his fingers into a carefully scattered mess again. He did this with such precision I would not have been surprised if the next moment he did not call everyone down to strip to their diapers and start sumo wrestling right there. (Yes, I know they use salt for this purpose and revere rice- don't bother me with your politically correct comments.) So I chased him out of the kitchen and I grabbed the broom. Here is where I made the dumbest decision of my day- I swept that rice right up. Into another neat litte pile. And then I walked away. Yup. I thought- "well, the little boys have both gotten in trouble for this now, and the big kids all know better. It'll be fine until we find that dustpan." (Waiting to exhale...) So a little while later I come in, and the rice is more scattered across the room than it has yet been this entire day. I began interrogating the suspects and discovered that Bubba (6) "didn't see it and walked right there". He is a sweet boy and I love him dearly. But it has just lately come to my attention that somehow, when my hubby and I taught that boy to walk, we must have left out the very fundamental detail that it works best if your feet actually leave the floor. So Bubba somehow managed to shuffle 2 cups of rice across the whole entire kitchen and dining room, just by walking in there for a second. I swept it up. Again. At this point Little Mommy (8) found the dustpan and finished the job for me. It's a good thing, because who knows how many more times I would have repeated this today. I guess being pregnant 11 times has killed off a few too many brain cells. It was one of those days. But then tonight, after they all wrote in their journals- even Monster Truck (2)- while Daddy read us "Charlotte's Web" out loud, and we sang and prayed together, Mr. Yuke (3) jumped into my lap and threw his little toddler arms around my neck and showered me with a dozen goodnight kisses. And I was thankful it was one of those days. In one moment of jelly-faced, completely sincere, heartfelt, toddler love, all the aggravation from the little things of today just melted away. And I was glad for the tender moments we share as a family. I guess when you're a mom it pays if you walk- no-- love softly, and carry a big stick. And a broom. And a dustpan.