It’s a late arrival home. Your husband is at class. Which means that you pick them up from school, play with them, feed them, wipe their butts, answer all their questions, bathe them, change them into jammies, read them both stories and tuck them both in all by yourself.

So you decide to stop at COSTCO after picking them up! I mean, why the hell not. You just LOVE headaches, right?!

It really does go very well, however, the constant need to stay patient and answer questions calmly and not, you know, LOSE IT when your son tries to hook up the chain that closes off the cashier line for the 4th time really starts to make that needley pain in your temples start to throb and those tarty school ma’rm shoes stop being so swanky and start to just really be painful and finally you’re in the car and you’re heading home annd really it is a miracle that you haven’t raised your voice in a shrill sireny lash at the kids yet..

So what do you do, when finally you manage to get the groceries out from the car, at least the perishable ones, and the kleenex, which is the reason why you just HAD to go there in the first place, because everyone’s noses are always running and nary a soft tissue in sight, and you even managed to remember to get a certain someone onto the potty before the flood gates loose and there’s a whole other situation to deal with and where was I again? Oh yeah, what do you do when you try to slap some peanut butter and jam on bread while getting the milk and eggs put away and your daughter steals away your very last reserve of patience by opening up the mongo package of kleenex and scattering all the boxes hither and yon in your kitchen, YOUR KITCHEN, the very kitchen where you are JUST TRYING TO GET SOME FOOD TOGETHER FOR PETE’S SAKE!!!!

WHAT DO YOU DO???

You take a deep breath, reach deep inside for inner strength and enthuse wildly, “JUST LOOK at all those boxes! Why don’t you make A TOWER!!”

Jocelyn: I am the queen of all things towery.
Ethan: I must hide behind my tower of invisibility so you cannot see me.

Jocelyn and Ethan had the best time building towers, kicking them over, and then picking up as many boxes in a tower as they could while exclaiming, “I’M GUS-GUS!!”*

Sometimes I really do deserve a mother of the year award.

* You know, gus-gus, from cinderella, he stacks the kernels of corn up to his chin and then they all go flying everywhere and the cat Lucifee is slowly stalking him down… Yeah. Gus-Gus.

– amy is lying, kind of, because all this happened a week or so ago, but she just got around to typing it up now.