The key

On our way home from tutoring we ran into Andrew on his way to go tutoring. It was kind of funny to see him walking down the street toward us since that’s not something we usually see.

“Oh, yeah!” I said when I saw him, “You have tutoring tonight as well. Good thing I remembered my key!”

Famous last words.

I pushed the stroller into the entryway of our building and then took out the diaper bag to get out my purse to get at my keys. And, wouldn’t you know it, my purse wasn’t there.

Cruel, cruel irony.

“Oh, no! I swear I put it in here. Rachel, did you take my purse out of the diaper bag?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Are you sure?

“Yes.”

I dialed my friend Amiee and asked her if I could swing by to pick up our house key. We leave a spare key with a set of good friends for times like these—we learned the hard way by locking ourselves out of our apartment in Orem so many times—but this is the first time we’ve ever had to use it.

Not wanting to push the stroller all the way to Amiee’s and then back again, I told Rachel that if she walked the whole way without complaining we could make cookies when we got home.

Pecuniary corruption can never start too young.

She did a great job and walked the whole time—I only had to threaten on nixing my end of the deal about 50 times, but she did it—and finally, after a full hour of wandering around Maadi we made it home, albeit much later and more tired and hungry than we had originally planned.

Once we were in the door, I checked to see if I had left my purse at home. I hadn’t, so I quickly phoned my mentee’s parents.

“A small brown one?”

“That’s the one.”

“Yes, it’s here.”

“Awesome!”

“Do you need something in it urgently?”

“Nope. I just wanted to know where it was. I’ll pick it up tomorrow!”

With that taken care of we quickly got busy in the kitchen. I got some bread dough out of the fridge and set it on the counter to rise. My visiting teacher stopped by late in January and gave me a roll of Pillsbury refrigerated cookie dough, which is the only reason I promised Rachel that we could make cookies upon returning home so late so I opened that up and we spooned balls of dough onto a cookie sheet and popped it into the oven. Then Rachel sat around whining about needing a cookie “right now” while she helped me squish the pizza dough onto another cookie sheet.

When the first batch of cookies were done I took them out of the oven and popped the crust in to pre-bake while we prepared the toppings and got another sheet of cookies ready.

By this time Miriam was losing her patience and had joined Rachel’s whining. Our kitchen sounded something like this:

WAAAAAAAAAAAA! I want a cookie! WAAAAAAAAA! I don’t want pizza for dinner! I just want a cookie! WAAAAAAAA! Give me a cookie! WAAAAAAAAAAAA! I don’t want to help! WAAAAAAAA! I won’t be quiet, I won’t! WAAAAAAAAA! WAAAAAAAAA! Hold me, Mom! Don’t hold her! WAAAAAAAA! WAAAAAAAA! I don’t want to! WAAAAAA! I want another cookie! WAAAA! Let me do it! WAA!

I had just gotten the last of the cookies out of the oven and the fully dressed pizza into the oven and had sat down to nurse Miriam and cuddle Rachel when Andrew walked through the door. I felt my shoulders relax almost immediately.

Some days I am more happy when Daddy comes home than others.

This was one of the more happy days.

I had Andrew take off Rachel’s shoes so that she would stop “accidentally” kicking Miriam in the head every time she moved and then both of them set the table while I finished nursing Miriam.

“Tay-too* for the pizza, Mom!” Rachel said after the prayer, “Saying tay-too is nice.”

“Yes, it is,” said Andrew.

“No tay-too for you!” she yelled at him, “You didn’t make it!”

She’s funny, but by 9:30 I was almost cringing every time I heard her voice. Just so done for the day. And Miriam chose tonight to stay up until midnight…I had her physically strapped to my body from 3:45 PM until 8:00 PM, she sat on my lap until 9:20 PM at which time we put her to bed, and then she only slept until 10:00 PM before waking up wanting to be held (of all things).

I’m so glad I have Andrew because after nursing her and pacing with her for over an hour and not even seeing an eyelid droop I was so kidded-out.

Hopefully tomorrow will run a little smoother. Having my house key would probably help.

* Thank you in Rachelese.