The prevailing thought running through my mind for about 48 hours this week was, “I’ve made a huge mistake.” Not just the dog — the decision to have children, living overseas, all the hours I spent tanning as a teenager . . . you name it, I could find a reason to regret it.
For starters, I knew that I would be taking care of the dog. I didn’t buy into any hollow promises of, “We’ll do everything!” or make them sign any weird contracts (ask Dave and Pam about that one), I knew that as a mom I’d be cleaning up after the dog the same way I clean up after all of them. Heck, they can’t even remember to flush the toilet half the time, I’m not expecting them to take full responsibility for a living creature. But I didn’t think my full time job as Dog Mother would start on day two. I figured I’d get at least seven days before the novelty wore off. I agree, it is hot outside, but the dog still has to be walked, he’s going to poop and it has to be picked up and thrown away, and I can’t watch the dog, the toddler who loves to poke at the dog’s eyes and play with his ears every time I turn my back, and feed starving children all at the same time. I’m awesome, but I’m not super-human.
And you would think the food thing would be easier now that we’re in a house. It would be, except none of our stuff is here so the kitchen (and its cupboards) are bare. At least in the hotel we had dishes, silverware, pots and pans and basic cooking essentials so even though I never felt like cooking, it was possible. Now we’re all sick of eating out and want to eat at home, but it’s not so easy to improvise a pot.
We went for second best and got take out from the base cafeteria the other night — BBQed chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans. I stopped at the base grocery store (more like a big mini-mart) and bought paper plates, bowls, paper towels and a few other things so we could eat in style. I got home to find that the plastic silverware that we brought over from the hotel had all mysteriously been thrown away so we had no utensils to eat with. Eating mashed potatoes and gravy using our fingers was not the dinner I expected, but at least we were eating around our own kitchen table. I also discovered it’s really hard to drink cereal out of a bowl because the milk drains out leaving the cereal behind . . . scraping the saturated Os into my mouth with my fingers is not my favorite way to eat Cheerios.
So I went and bought real silverware, 6 plates, 6 bowls and 6 cups. I also threw in a can opener, a cutting board, a cheap knife, and a glass storage bowl with a lid that could go in the microwave. I’m still looking for a saucepan. This is how I end up with 4 can openers: we move, our stuff doesn’t arrive, I get frustrated and buy something to hold me over until my good stuff arrives. This time I thought I was being smart by mailing my good knives to myself so they’d get here before my shipment and I wouldn’t have to buy a cheap knife. Six weeks later that box still hasn’t arrived. Time to start browsing Williams-Sonoma.com for replacements.
Things here have been rather chaotic this week. But I think (really, really hope) things are looking up. While I wanted to run away from my children a few days ago, last night they really increased their effort (after I threw a screaming fit and their dad told them to stop behaving like jackasses). I took away electronics for a few days so they’d have one less thing to fight about and last night after we all cleaned the house they raced each other around the living room (since we can’t watch the Olympics they have to invent their own events). Nervous dog is getting less nervous all the time and surprisingly he still likes Camille, even though she follows him like a pest every minute of the day.
I think I might make it.