Exploding Carrots and Pizza Soup

I've spent a couple of days with my mom here so that I could go get my teeth drilled while she watched the girls. She left earlier today and I was sad to see her go. The MINUTE she left the house (she hadn't even made it to her car) everything got complicated - Mary woke up screaming and would not go back to sleep to finish her nap. Sleeping would have been good because I needed to take a shower. So I changed her. No change. I rocked her. No change. I fed her. Bingo, but now she was not going to go back to sleep. So I took a shower while she played in her swing (read: complained and cried but was drowned out by the music of the swing and the running shower). Emma woke up before I was done and wanted out of her crib, which meant no hair dryer for me. I don't need to go on. The afternoon got more and more complicated - just normal toddler/infant demands. So now I won't go on. But the afternoon stretched into the evening and Jim was not home yet when it was time for dinner.

While Emma cried (really, CRIED) and Mary screamed, I nuked the toddler food as quickly as possible. When Emma's carrots were still cold, I put them on 1 minute. Interestingly enough, this is a great way to make pureed carrots. So now the microwave has carrot colored measles on the inside. I just cleaned that microwave on Monday. Moral: let Emma eat cold food, or, more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Jim arrived an hour later with pizza in hand (hallelujah!). Both children were fed and changed into pajamas and Mary was on her way to bed. That left us with Emma and our pizza. She, of course, wanted to share with us even though she had already eaten. So, out came her picnic set that Grandmama just gave her. Out came the thermos, the bowls and the spoons. A lone pizza crust was liberally sprinkled into the 'soup' and the served to us. It was the best pizza soup we had ever eaten.

Now some may be deterred by the ramblings here and the accounts of screaming toddlers and infants. I needn't mention any names, DEREK. But I will have anyone who will read this know that such distractions are equivalent to a mosquito bite in the overall picture. Nothing beats being the center of the universe for a kid. And now that I begin to get a couple of full night rests (that's right - Mary is flirting with sleeping all night), I already cannot remember what was so bad about the last couple of months. Now the first few are CLEARLY detailed in my memory, but the other details are beginning to get glossed over. It is the happy affliction called motherhood.