Monday. Seven o’clock. Half an hour late—as usual, and we’re nowhere near ready for Family Home Evening. Tostito crumbs, overturned tomatoes, spinach stems and pilfered peppers litter table, chairs, and floor. Boy 5 squeezes Ranch into the salsa bottle while Boy 2 hollers and slugs him: family law enforcement at its finest.
“Family Teamwork time!” I intervene, scooping tomato-smothered Baby (Boy 6) in one arm and howling Boy 5 in the other. Daddy, in our bedroom, abandons his attempt to reduce Mt. Laundry Heap and instead rallies our Teamwork Troops as I retreat with our two youngest to the bathtub.
It’s an average Monday night.
I scrub some No More Tears into Boy 5’s hair. He grimaces. “You a bad mom,” he accuses, his pout pulling down his dimpled, three-year-old mouth.
I feel like a bad mom. “I’m being the best mom I can be,” I reply and tip him over to rinse his bubbly blonde head. Baby splashes water into Boy 5’s eyes, and Boy 5 swats at Baby. I pull the plug, lift both boys from the tub, and wrap them in towels against their protests.
Diapered and dressed, only a breast can soothe Baby; so I nurse while I diaper Boy 5.
“Not that sleepa,” he grumbles at the one I produce. “My Bob the Builda ‘jamas! They back he-ya.” And, sure enough, he tugs the crumpled Bob bottoms from his drawer’s deepest niche. Of course, the top is nonexistent.
“How about a t-shirt?” I suggest.
Wrong. Again. “Not a t-shut!” he insists. “A nighta shut!”
“A nighter shirt. Let’s see if we can find one in Laundry Mountain.”
Still nursing Baby, I lead Boy 5 to Mt. Laundry Heap atop my bed. I rifle one-handed through Fruit of the Loom, Joe Boxers, and Levis; Boy 5 essays ascent. Better than any autumn leaf pile, Mt. Laundry Heap tantalizes Boy 5’s dare-devil spirit. Jump in me. Jump in me. Jump in me, it taunts; and Boy 5 hardly hesitates.
Whatever, I resign myself. Why stifle his fun?
Neither of us accounts for the crib’s oak sideboard adjacent Laundry Mountain. The heap obscures the crib’s outcropping enough to mask its danger but not enough to cushion its blow to Boy 5’s forehead.
He shrieks. My gut convulses. Now I really feel like a bad mom, but I quickly forget about me. I clutch Boy 5 with the arm not holding Baby. As he wails, his forehead’s welt swells to Easter-egg size.
“Ice!” I order Team Kitchen Patrol; but to Boy 5 I speak soothingly. I stroke his hair and press his face to my chest, and his wailing turns to whimpering as he escapes into my embrace.
Daddy brings a frozen zucchini compress and relieves me of Baby. I rock Boy 5 and tell him the story of Boy 2’s cracking open his head in his toddlerhood. Immediately, Boy 5’s eyes open wide, his whimpers subside, his breathing calms.
“While we waited for the doctor to stitch him up,” I recount, “I rocked our Boy and held him close; and before I knew it, he fell asleep. Heavenly Father blessed him to sleep all through the stitches. Heavenly Father made that miracle because He loves Boy 2. He loves you, too. Do you think He can help you?”
His lower lip trembles. Tears well in his long-lashed eyes. I hold him close. “He can,” I testify. “Shall we ask Him?”
In the living room, Daddy’s tenor leads Boys 1-4 in singing. “Keep the commandments,” they chorus, a youthful unison. “Keep the commandments, in this there is safety and peace.”
I cradle Boy 5. Our center cushion is open and waiting on the big couch. Daddy calls on Boy 4 to open Home Evening with prayer. “Remember to ask Heavenly Father to bless Boy 5 and his hurt.”
Boy 5 cuddles close. “You a good mom,” he whispers.
Mt. Laundry Heap still bedecks my bed. My kitchen is still strewn with taco salad. My toddler bears a battle wound. But somehow, I feel like a good mom.
It’s an average Monday night.
I cuddle him back and kiss his welt and close my eyes for prayer.
No comments:
Post a Comment