Fried

When you are acting as a single mom as I am right now, the moments with the kids that you can sit back and enjoy them are few and far between. Mostly, you are running around like a crazed banshee picking things up off the floor, the ceiling fans, the counters. Or you are cleaning people's tushies (is that the plural of tushy?) and scraping food off of the table, floor and that ever disgusting highchair. (How is it the highchair that once sat at the store with gleaming plastic, the pad so smooth and the straps so soft and supple- nary a crumb on them- is suddenly a festering slime magnet with straps that you can't even adjust anymore due to the amount of goo that has hardened under the buckles?) But I digress.

So I had an almost moment. I had a moment of commercial-worthy mothering. Me, pouring a cup of hot water (without shaking!) and reaching up to get the honey with a smile on my face. The baby playing on the floor -which I just mopped thank you!- with some fridge toys. I could almost hear the director yelling cut! Perfection!

Then - reality hits. The honey drops on the floor, the lid cracks off and after bouncing a few times, drips into a puddle. Next, the box of tea will not open and the perfect baby will not stop pushing play on the fridge toy that has possibly the most annoying song on earth. Finally, the actress playing me (me) picks baby up and promptly walks right into the puddle of honey that accumulated on the floor.

Four hours later the actress playing an annoyed, tired and irritated mother (me) finally gets back to her cup of now cold water. Just when single parenting feels like it just doesn't get any better and I want to pack it in and walk away, I look up and see my eleven month old steal, then eat, his first french fry.

And it is those moments,so tiny, few and far between that keeps this mom (me) going.