It was an omen. A moment. A sign. Divine intervention. Or just a messy coincidence. But I should have known.
When you start the morning with the kids screwing around and one of them not paying attention and tossing their cereal bowl in the air and spilling cereal-filled milk everywhere that it just isn't going to be the best day.
I missed that actual moment, but came downstairs (sporting what Caleb would describe as my not-yet-styled old lady hair) to the drama of a bowl of spilled cereal and Caleb crying over it.
Yes, we were really crying over spilled milk.
And the day went on from there. More (figurative) spilled milk, everywhere.
I was getting ready to race out of the office to get the boys when my phone rang and it was daycare's number. Immediately I got that "Daycare is Calling Pit in My Stomach." Let's face it, I adore these guys, but they don't call me to chat or tell me how cute my kids are.
Usually its:
1. barfing
2. burning up
3. barfing and burning up
4. head injuries
Today it was number 4. That sounds worse than it was. As I explained it to Brian, Eli got into a fight with a table and the table won. He split his lip all the way from outside to way inside and it's huge and puffy and angry. Ugh. Poor kid. Poor teachers (who I know always feel bad when stuff that is out of their control happens).
Went to meet Caleb at the bus stop. And we waited for 15 minutes for the bus. Sitting in the car. Strapped into seatbelts. In the dark. Sound fun? The entire time we were there, Eli screamed, "Milk. Milk. Milk." Sound even more fun? Try explaining to a 21-month-old that you don't keep a gallon of milk in the car. It doesn't work.
We got home and Eli got his milk. Which he promptly spilled. No, I am not kidding.
And he cried.
And then he grabbed a rag and cleaned it up.
And I stood there watching him and it struck me. Here I was feeling frustrated with my day and with the nutty schedule that is tonight. And here we had the baby in the family showing us what it was all about.
We spill milk from time to time and we just have to clean it up and deal with it.
So if my youngest child can figure that out, so too can I.
P.S. If you look in the background of the photos of Eli, I just realized you can actually see the rags he was using to clean up the milk.
