Passing the Taters

When I came into work today, I did as I do most days and wandered down the hall to the "The Little Hole" aka Chuck's office. Chuck is one of those co-workers that you're lucky enough to call your friend. After being at home all day with three kids 4 and under (AAAAAAHHH!!!), it's one of the highlights of my day. It's my chance to sit and relax and have an adult conversation (meaning a conversation between two adults... not necessarily conversations on adult subjects). He's the person I share stories with, concerns, questions, thoughts and bad jokes. Not as a shrink, but as a friend, and I get the opportunity to return the favor. It works out quite well. As we were sharing stories today, we somehow got on the subject of a young man Chuck was recently in contact with who was having a smorgishborg with what he could get from his own beak. This kid was old enough to know better too - like 14. He just had that finger shoved right in there and when he took it out he licked it like a lollipop - over and over again going back for more. Maybe his boogers taste like cotton candy? Who knows?

Why am I telling you this, well it brought to mind a story of my own. About a month ago on a Saturday morning, I had some Mommy time. Jason was taking all three kids to the Y with him and leaving me home all by myself to get some cleaning done - something I'd been begging for time to do. The only thing was that I didn't feel like cleaning that day. Don't you just hate that? I just kept that little bit of info to myself though. We were all getting dressed in Mom and Dad's room in front of the cartoons. Everyone was on the bed - I was getting Ven dressed and Jason was making Lil pretty. I heard Jason say "Oh yuck, let me get a ..." before he could finish the sentence Coen jumps up and says "I'll get it, Dad." He then proceeds to take his finger and swipe up the snot runnung out of Lily's nose... and then eat it! OH MY GOSH! I thought Jason was going to blow chunks right there! (Chuck had a very similar reaction when I told him this story). He starts screaming at Coen and telling him how disgusting he is and just scaring the poor little thing to death. I chased Dad out of the room and we had a much calmer conversation about his nastiness. It's bad enough he eats his own boogers, but that was just beyond the normal realm of nasty we're used to.

We continued on with our morning and all was well. I hugged everyone goodbye and waved as they pulled out of the driveway. I then let out a huge sign of relief. MY FAMILY IS GONE AND I"M HERE ALL BY MYSELF!!! I should be ashamed, but I'm so NOT! I decided to scoot on around the corner to our church, where there was a craft show going on that day. It was so nice. It was just me. I took my time and looked at everything and spoke to everybody. It was church, I knew a ton of people there. My conversation wasn't interrupted by a whining child and my husband wasn't sitting outside in the van glaring at me to hurry up - he's just shy of beeping... he knows better than to beep. Anywho, it was nice. I got home and went upstairs to kick off my shoes. On the way I passed a huge mirror in the hallway. As I do just about every time I pass it, I looked in to check that all the pieces of me were still there. They were, but to my horror, pieces of a child were there too! Right there on the front of my plain turquoise T-shirt was a gigantic crusty booger stuck to my chest! It must have been passed along while I was Goodbying the kids! OH, MAN! And to think there I was stopping to chat away with everyone I saw at church. I felt so stupid and nasty. Boogers, my grandma used to call them Taters - I thought that was so funny. I miss Grandma.