When my husband is home I get lazy. Sometimes I even sit down. Yup. You heard me. And once in a while I even crack open a book and sometimes, SOMETIMES I read it.
So the other day, stricken by the silence of the house, and the fact that I had actually made it through an entire chapter without interruption, I put down my book and headed toward the kitchen, where I could make out the faint giggles of my husband and son:
Of course, there they were, like a couple of puppies. Archer was barefoot and shirtless, with his feet (shoes and all) splashing in the dog water bowl and Hal was smearing dirty water with his fingers around the room. They were happy as two boys could be. Laughing, sopping wet, sliding around the kitchen in dog-water swamp. In our freezing cold house.
In retrospect it kind of looked like fun, but at the time all I could muster was a gasp of horror and a dramatic hand-to-the-forehead.
"For God's sake, Hal! You'll both catch cold! You're soaking wet! What are you thinking? Get out of those wet clothes this instant!" I reached for a mop as the boys looked up at me with great big, woops-did-we-do-something-wrong, blinking eyes.
And I realized that for all the times I think I'm cool and laid-back and care free, I'm not. Not even close.
Dads get to make the mess and Moms want/have to/can't help but clean them up. I hate to admit it but it's true.
That even though I pride myself on my ability to make a mess and break shit and thrash and tear and spill and smear, I'm far more concerned with the clean up. The slobber-infested water bowl flooding the kitchen floors Archer eats off of. The dirt on his little hands that I can't wait to wash away.
And that's the truth, ladies and germs. The clean as a whistle dirty-ass truth.
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