An Ice Cream Cone First.
Liam and I were both exhausted today. This weekend was overwhelming.
Actually, thinking about weekends, the last couple have not been relaxing at all for me. I know I have high expectations of what I want to get done, but there’s so much to do and it’s hard to put things off when I am living in the what-if-I-end-up-on-bedrest-and-nothing-is-ready mode until further notice.
I generally try to set aside Sunday as my day to decompress and prepare for the next week. My usual Sunday ritual involves making to-do lists, planning my weekly errands, getting a grocery list together, and making sure that the house is picked up and looks nice for at least part of the day on Monday. It’s kind of like being baptized, I think – all the to-dos of the previous week are washed away and the next week’s list is pristine without any black marks on the page.
But that hasn’t happened the last few weeks. And the fact that I was lazy instead of getting shit marked off my list just means that there’s more to do this week, and more importantly, that I don’t know what those things are since I didn’t get my lists made yesterday. It frustrates me more than anything to be disorganized. So, I’ve been scrambling on Monday mornings to get it all done. This morning, I attempted it during the last 30 minutes of Sesame Street. I was crazed. All I got done was the grocery list.
Then I dealt with a whiny, monster child.  I finally couldn’t take it any more and put him in bed at 12.15 – an hour earlier than usual. He didn’t sleep as long as he should have…I’m wondering if he’s getting sick…but I got a little snooze in, which always makes it easier to deal with later in the day. (Mind you, it didn’t stop me from food medicating most of the day.)
Anyway, after too much stress eating and a short nap, L and I did manage to go to the grocery store. But before we went, I drove through two McDonald’s to get an ice cream cone. The first one had a broken machine and I was desperate. For a moment, I felt as though one must feel when their drug dealer “leaves town” unexpectedly. Who picks up the slack? Fortunately, there’s another McD’s right next door to the grocery store I frequent and they hooked me up.
As part of my ploy to keep Irritable Small Child happy during the entire grocery shopping trip, I let L hold the cone and lick the ice cream.
You would have thought I’d given him the key to heaven. Those bright blue eyes shone with glee and every time I had to take it away to “clean up the drips” he’d fixate and chant, “ISSSEE keam cone, ISSSEE keam cone.” A couple of times I tried to hold it and just give him a bite so that I could enjoy some of it as well, but he caught on to that quite adeptly. The blue eyes looked at me longingly and he’d say, “Lee-um do-it? Peas Mama.”
There is no getting around the fact that he has felt the joy of holding the cone as well as eating from it as it dripped slowly down his chin and neck onto his shirt.
The ice cream mustache was worth the mess.
So, I’m not exactly which one of us shared the ice cream cone with the other. All I know is that to each of us, the thought of it being, “my ice cream cone” was enough. It made both of our days a little easier.
