Crazy

My mother was crazy. I thought a few months ago as I stood at the kitchen sink hand washing the last of the pots and pans from dinner. I had just made a dinner to be proud of, two vegetable sides, a main dish that turned out nicely, and even a little something for dessert. It had taken a long time to create, but was oh so good. Greg was now in bed dreaming his baby dreams and I was half listening to Daniel read a story to Charlotte and half thinking my own thoughts about how my mom was crazy. I love listening to him read to her or play with her or teach her something. Lately he's been trying to give her a little Spanish vocabulary. He'll say para agua (or however you spell umbrella in Spanish) and she'll repeat palalala.

Back to my point though, my mom's crazy. I had recently been made aware of what is apparently a common debate in marriages, that being whether dirty dishes go on the counter or in the sink, and my total ignorance of this debate I put squarely on my mom's shoulders. You see in my family growing up neither of those options were acceptable. Dirty dishes went in the dishwasher. If it was full you would empty it in order to get your dirty dish in. If it wouldn't fit into the dirty dishwasher you hand washed it. In fact once I remember being on vacation at my cousins' house and my aunt upon finding a dirty cereal bowl in the sink heatedly asking my cousins, "When is is OK to put a dirty dish in the sink?" And trying my very best to telepathically give them the right answer never, never, NEVER. And then they said, "When the dishwasher is full." Wherein beatings commenced.

So there I am at the sink, the dishwasher swooshing away merrily with its cleaning job, finishing putting away the last of the dried pots and pans (because a job isn't done until the last tool is put away), and generally cleaning the kitchen. The stove top is sparkling and the floor is swept. I'm feeling pretty good about my job and thinking about how my mom was crazy about overreacting to having to do so many dishes. Though it had taken me almost an hour to get the kitchen to this height of cleanliness I actually had been enjoying myself. It had been kind of nice to have the moment alone.

Afterward, Daniel got Charlotte ready for bed and I collapsed, exhausted from the day's tasks into the recliner. As I looked around I noticed that the books hadn't been put away, but that's no big deal, and the blankets hadn't been folded, but again not that hard to fix. So I get up and fix them. Dan comes down to do some research on the computer and I decide to go into my sparkling kitchen to get a glass of water.

On entering the kitchen I get so much more than a glass of water. I come to have a greater understanding of the eye twitch that my mom would sometimes get when provoked. Right there in the middle of the spotless counter, my daughter had left a spilled cup of juice. And as my eye started twitching I realized, yes, my mother was crazy, and I made her that way!