How Roasted Carrots and a Storm Door Made Alison Lose It

I saw this towel in an Amish shop, in Intercourse, PA, while on vacation this summer.
I took a picture because it struck me as both funny and (sad but) true. The sentiment on the towel pretty much sums up motherhood, if you ask me.

If you follow me on Twitter, you would have noticed a series of tweets yesterday that pointed toward the fact that I was having a less than enjoyable afternoon.

It went something like this:

Words no mom wants to hear: "Hey mom, we're going to carve sticks; can I have a butter knife?" Um, no.

and then

Uh oh, I'm starting to get cranky.

This parenting thing wouldn't be so bad, except for the part where you have to deal with kids.

I stopped with this tweet:

My kid is alright; it's her group of wild cohorts that get me all bunched up.

If I had not been summoned to respond to a wild group of raucous children, I probably would have continued to tweet about my bad mood, but, I was torn away from the computer.

Did I mention the raucous children?

You see, Caroline and her girl friends are a relatively tame bunch. Sure they wrestle every now and then, and fight over trivial things, but for the most part, they're pretty tame. They're loud, but not physically detrimental to themselves or our home. Usually.

We have a boy neighbor, Jason, who plays with the girls; he's a nice kid, polite and friendly, but when we comes in the house the girls get riled up and chaos ensues.

Yesterday was no different.

I heard a loud noise near the front door and rushed up to see what happened. Evidently, my child was racing out the door at warped speed and gave the storm door more of a generous shove than she should have. The bottom part that attaches to the door frame has come loose. The wood was split already, but now it's REALLY split and the screw is stripped.

Guess a call to our local handyman is now in order.

My response to the door situation will not go down in history as one of my finest moments. I got mad, Caroline cried, blame was thrown around and I got mad some more. I'm pretty sure the words "why don't you go ruin someone else's house" slipped through my lips.

The kids apologized for being rowdy and we went on.

I sort of got over the door thing, but my bad mood continued over roasted carrots.

Yep, roasted carrots.

Usually roasted carrots bring delight to our house in the form of taste, aroma and overall general satisfaction. All three of us enjoy roasted carrots.

So does Caroline's friend, Sarah.

After the door being ripped from the frame incident, the girls (and Jason) redirected their attention to the kitchen and saw through the oven door that carrots were roasting away. Giddy with excitement, they asked when the carrots would be done and talked about how excited they were that they would be able to eat roasted carrots hot from the oven.

Normally, I don't mind sharing our food with Caroline's friends. Especially carrots. However, I wasn't in a good mood yesterday AND I was running low on carrots, so the amount in the oven was just enough for the three of us.

I was non-committal towards Sarah on the roasted carrot subject, because I didn't want to get her hopes up.

I really wanted them to get off the kitchen floor where they had perched themselves in front of the oven. I really wanted them to move on to other things, preferably of the non-house-destroying kind, but they were just way too excited about carrots.

Finally, I shooed them away because I needed to finish my dinner preparations and it's hard to move around three bodies glued to the floor, licking their lips in roasted carrot anticipation.

At this time, Craig came home from work. We talked about the door and I grumbled a bit about the carrots, the kids (who were now back in the kitchen) and my overall displeasure with how the day was going.

I felt stupid for being angry and overly possessive of my roasted carrots, but for some reason, I just did not want Sarah to have any of our carrots. I mean, really, how childish is that?

It wasn't because I didn't want her to eat veggies. Any other day of the week, I would have been more than happy to share. I think I was just really, really annoyed with the door incident and not in the mood to be broken from it. Also, as happy as I am that the kids feel welcome and comfortable here, sometimes I think they get TOO comfortable and perhaps that was what was really bugging me.

I'm glad they feel welcome, comfortable and safe here; I honestly, really and truly do not want that to change.

I suppose I just don't want them so comfortable that they feel as if it's okay to open my oven while I have things cooking, stir the stuff in the pots on the stove, grab candy from the candy jar without asking, etc....

This post really doesn't have much of a point, other than to allow me to vent for a few minutes.

It's a teacher work day today (and Monday) so we're geared up for a long weekend. Snow is expected to come our way tomorrow, which is a welcomed distraction for the kids. Hopefully that will keep them out of my hair and away from my carrots!