A glimpse of motherhood on my way to an RWC
It was my lucky day. I was actually going out to dinner in a nice restaurant with my husband and other people, all of whom were adults. Commonly called a RWC, a Restaurant Without Crayons is something special, especially when you consider that the placemat doesn’t double as an activity pad and a menu serving hot dogs.
In a life of motherhood like mine, this doesn’t happen very often. It’s practically the Halley ’s Comet of my dinner hour life. And so I began on an evening of preparation for a single and wonderful meal without my kids or my diaper bag in tow.
It started off with a bit of a morale booster when my six-year-old son said exactly this to me. “Who makes the best dinner and is the most awesome mom in the world? THAT lady,” and he pointed to me with his tiny fingers held like little pistols and he clicked his tongue as if he were calling a dog.
Keep in mind that the world’s best dinner according to my kids is anything that contains plain noodles and steamed broccoli which is normally not a child’s favorite vegetable, but somehow I was granted the gift of broccoli acceptance but unfortunately denied any other vegetable.
Once fed and happy, I rushed upstairs to put on something that didn’t smell like the fish sticks I had made them to accompany said veggie and noodles. I had to find just the right balance of fashion, something that says “I’m old, but not that old” and, you know, also something that didn’t have any stains and wasn’t circa 1993.
Piecing together something tolerable, I figured that if I could still squeeze into my boots that I wouldn’t have to change the overdue holiday socks with the giant hole in the toe, just below Santa’s sleigh.
And there I stood, decently dressed and in my holy socks, and I looked at myself in the mirror. And what was staring back made me wonder if I should ever be allowed to enter a RWC again.
There in my hair was a globule of something toothpaste-like, yet strangely not minty. I rinsed and combed it out before trying to fix my hair and cover up the fact that I had survived a pillow fight battle earlier that day.
And looking back at me was my bloodshot eye, the one that hasn’t quite healed since the gift of pinkeye was bestowed upon me. Or if it wasn’t pinkeye, it could very well have been the 3.2 hours of sleep I was getting every night and the fact that I had chopped 3 onions earlier that afternoon.
But it ain’t nothing a little a few eye drops won’t fix.
Leaning into the mirror and attempting to get the red out, I notice out of the corner of my red eye that right there in the crook of my collarbone, is a small and green unidentified object. Perfectly round and so stuck to me that it had survived the mad dash of searching for something to wear, nice and snug on my shoulder.
So I did the only thing I could think of doing. I picked it off and squished it between my fingers and gave it a good, hearty smell.
It was ABCB. Already Been Chewed Broccoli.
Apparently in the midst of the dinner frenzy, when the littlest one became unhappy about something and I threw her on my hip to comfort her, through her tears she deposited a tiny reminder that even though I may have been going to a RWC wearing my nice clothes, I was still THAT lady, the one who makes awesome dinner and isn’t afraid to brush a little ABCB off her shoulder.
In a life of motherhood like mine, this doesn’t happen very often. It’s practically the Halley ’s Comet of my dinner hour life. And so I began on an evening of preparation for a single and wonderful meal without my kids or my diaper bag in tow.
It started off with a bit of a morale booster when my six-year-old son said exactly this to me. “Who makes the best dinner and is the most awesome mom in the world? THAT lady,” and he pointed to me with his tiny fingers held like little pistols and he clicked his tongue as if he were calling a dog.
Keep in mind that the world’s best dinner according to my kids is anything that contains plain noodles and steamed broccoli which is normally not a child’s favorite vegetable, but somehow I was granted the gift of broccoli acceptance but unfortunately denied any other vegetable.
Once fed and happy, I rushed upstairs to put on something that didn’t smell like the fish sticks I had made them to accompany said veggie and noodles. I had to find just the right balance of fashion, something that says “I’m old, but not that old” and, you know, also something that didn’t have any stains and wasn’t circa 1993.
Piecing together something tolerable, I figured that if I could still squeeze into my boots that I wouldn’t have to change the overdue holiday socks with the giant hole in the toe, just below Santa’s sleigh.
And there I stood, decently dressed and in my holy socks, and I looked at myself in the mirror. And what was staring back made me wonder if I should ever be allowed to enter a RWC again.
There in my hair was a globule of something toothpaste-like, yet strangely not minty. I rinsed and combed it out before trying to fix my hair and cover up the fact that I had survived a pillow fight battle earlier that day.
And looking back at me was my bloodshot eye, the one that hasn’t quite healed since the gift of pinkeye was bestowed upon me. Or if it wasn’t pinkeye, it could very well have been the 3.2 hours of sleep I was getting every night and the fact that I had chopped 3 onions earlier that afternoon.
But it ain’t nothing a little a few eye drops won’t fix.
Leaning into the mirror and attempting to get the red out, I notice out of the corner of my red eye that right there in the crook of my collarbone, is a small and green unidentified object. Perfectly round and so stuck to me that it had survived the mad dash of searching for something to wear, nice and snug on my shoulder.
So I did the only thing I could think of doing. I picked it off and squished it between my fingers and gave it a good, hearty smell.
It was ABCB. Already Been Chewed Broccoli.
Apparently in the midst of the dinner frenzy, when the littlest one became unhappy about something and I threw her on my hip to comfort her, through her tears she deposited a tiny reminder that even though I may have been going to a RWC wearing my nice clothes, I was still THAT lady, the one who makes awesome dinner and isn’t afraid to brush a little ABCB off her shoulder.
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