60 Seconds of Quiet

   I planned an enormous shopping trip. The kind that required two shopping carts and separate lists because we planned a reunion with friends and I needed to find six different kinds of cereal. Since the second round of antibiotics has knocked me for a loop this week, I didn't make it to Harris Teeter during the day, and finding that all the milk was gone, subsisted on the last four ounces of orange juice and called it 'lunch'.
   So when the headache lifted, briefly, around 7:30, I feebly put on shoes and asked my darling husband to please, please, please help me buy groceries. And he assented most generously, and the children consented most piteously, and we went to the store.
   It was epic and exhausting, and the little Jetta wagon could not have held another bag. I sat with a 24 pack of Dasani on my lap for the drive home. And while the children had really, really tried their best to not ask too many questions, my headache was certainly back. When we were half a mile from home, after the umpteenth question about the fate of the last two popsicles in the freezer, I lost the will to live and simply closed my eyes. Perhaps if I stopped answering, the questions would fade away.
    At last, Daddy intervened.

D: "All right, all right, guys. Let's take a break, ok? Let's all try to be really quiet for 60 seconds."

J (6-year-old son): "60 seconds? That's one minute!"

D: "Yes. Let's try to be quiet for that long."

J: "One minute?"

D: "Right. You're still talking."

A( 4-year-old daughter): "But I'm not! I'm being very quiet!"

J: "No, you were just talking!"

A: "But - no - the before - I was - and you were NOT quiet - "

J: "Why are you both laughing? Mom? Dad?"

Nice Try, Kid

  I should have known better.
  I stood, smelling like Lysol, in my cleaning tee and shorts, with my hair glistening from lack-of-shower and my face rosy with the allergic response to seasonal pollen. In another few minutes, I would discover that I was wearing the T-shirt inside out.
   I should have been on my guard.
   But when Princess wandered through the living room and stopped, mouth agape, I couldn't help but trust her beautifully innocent expression. "Mommy!" she cried. "You are SO. BEAUTIFUL!"
   I melted. "Oh, sweetheart," I said, "Thank you. I needed that! That is so kind - "
 
   "Can I have a cookie?!"



    It was a nice try. Thank heaven it will be a few years before subtlety kicks in.