Justin is an amazing husband and dad. In fact, he’s amazing at a lot of things which can get a little annoying once in a while. But, you know, I suffer through his perfection. So, it is Justin who has inspired this post, along with a little group I like to write for. Two Writing Teachers (https://twowritingteachers.wordpress.com) hosts a blog share every Tuesday called “Slice of Life”. We are invited to write about a little snippet of our personal or professional lives. I was going about my “normal” life, shaking my head because of the insanity of it all, when I realized I should share my experience from this morning to show just how *special* Justin is, and to let you all in on the chaos that I call normalcy.
Since we are Amazon Prime members, we receive packages at least once a week. Diapers, running shoes, tools, diamond jewelry; you know, all the regular stuff. Justin likes to make ginormous contraptions for the children out of the cardboard boxes. We currently have a fort that takes up half of our three-season room, an airplane, and a box specially designed with a section for each child, which of course they couldn’t get the hang of, so they tackled each other inside it until the box broke. You see? Justin is full of good ideas. Already I’ve shown you that he has cluttered up our home with trash AND caused the kids to fight over real estate in a box.
This past week, we received a humidifier from Amazon. It’s the kind that can humidify your entire house. This is a reasonable investment, for sure, when you have small kids who catch every cold that runs along. So anyway, this purchase is where the box-that-must-be-fought-over came from. What I failed to realize until the children had become way too attached was that Justin had also allowed them the Styrofoam inserts as toys. I walked into the living room to see Ella sitting on one, and Harrison using one as a garage for his vehicles. Sometime a bit later, I realized that there were four of these special little gems. Naturally, Harrison believed he needed all four. This resulted in him literally pulling Ella’s Styrofoam seat- or whatever you want to call it-right out from under her. Twice. (Luckily, one of us had decided that the box had to go so it was only the Styrofoam that was causing conflict at this time. I found that box later on in the three-season-room with all the other cardboard inventions.)
My dear husband, in his infinite wisdom, had the perfect solution. He would write “Harrison” on one, and “Ella” on another. With the remaining two, he wrote, “SHARE”. You guys, my kids can’t read. They’re freaking brilliant, but they can’t read yet. And they definitely cannot share. The fighting over Styrofoam did not end; it just resulted in a brief pause to ask me what each piece said, presumably so each kid would know how to annoy the other one faster.
But THEN! He went to work. Justin went to work this morning and left me with the Styrofoam and pre-literate people who could not read or share their Styrofoam pieces. And, all before preschool, something amazing happened. We had our first snow of the season. In the house. Because, you know what’s fun? Ripping up Styrofoam into little tiny pieces and scattering it around the house. Yeah, it looks like snow. And we haven’t had snow yet, so obviously we should make some ALL OVER THE HOUSE BEFORE 8 AM.
I left the house bewildered and embarrassed at the thought that I was leaving behind such a mess, but that early in the morning, I was too angry at Justin and his bright ideas, and too tired to do anything about it. I do love him. But I do wish he’d think things through, like our children’s reading levels. And the appropriateness of play things. And the repercussions of his brilliance.
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