Thursdays with Momma

You see what I did there? I mean with the post title? It's a play on words of Mitch Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie. It's just another display of my creative genius (or my laziness 'cause I can't come up with a better title). You see, Linda's been sick, and she decided to work from home yesterday after losing her voice while battling some sort of upper respiratory affliction. She was up all night coughing, tossing and turning. And for a gorgeous babe, she didn't look so good Thursday morning. Frankly, she looked more like a cold mummy than a hot mommy. So technically, I suppose a more appropriate post title would be Weekend at Bernie's? Maybe? No? Okay. Anyway, the good thing about Linda's ailment is that she couldn't bark orders or yell at me. The down side was she has a pretty good throwing arm, and a can of sweet peas smashing into the side of your head at 70 miles per hour leaves a mighty healthy bruise.

Well, Linda's voice returned today, so she's back at her office. But after having her stay home with us for a day, it's abundantly apparent we have totally different parenting styles, at least in terms of how we each allow Claire to play. For example, we created a play room downstairs where Claire can, well, play. I suppose that's one reason why it's called a "play room". It's where Claire keeps her playhouse, play kitchen, and it's where she plays with her toys, puzzles, dolls, etc. Last winter, I took great pains to take all Claire's toys that used to be kept in our main level office closet and relocate them to her play room closet downstairs. My objective was to avoid having toys dispersed throughout the main level of our house each day while Claire plays. Instead, now her little toy mess is restricted to her "play room" downstairs. And if the wants to play with something while on the main level, she has her play piano in our piano room. Otherwise, I give her a piece of string and a Nyquil dispenser cup and send her on her way telling her to "let your creative juices flow".

So yesterday I decided to take advantage of Linda's illness and mow the lawn before it snows tomorrow (yep... I said snow). Linda had some conference calls to conduct - and by "conduct" I mean "sit quietly and roll your eyes because you're unable to speak". It was early afternoon, and I usually let Claire watch PBS Kids for an hour (and with any luck, she falls asleep and takes a 60-90 minute nap). I figured Linda would do the same, so I headed outside to get my mowing on. Upon my return inside, I found Claire playing on the floor of our main level family room... surrounded by building blocks, stuffed animals, a pair of flip flops, the clothes she wore to preschool that morning, a Target bag full of all sorts of sh!t Claire likes to carry around the house, and a whole lot of other "stuff" from Claire's play room closet. I was just standing there with a look of shock and horror on my face when Linda appeared and - with a strained whispering voice - said, "She needs to play." So I asked, "Well why do you think she has a piece of string and a Nyquil dispenser cup?" Adding, "And what exactly is the reason for her PLAY room downstairs?" Then it just started pouring out of my mouth, and I might have thrown in a few sarcastic - and perhaps a bit douchebaggy - comments Linda's way since she couldn't really speak, and that's when I saw a can of sweet peas being hurled in my direction.

The moral of this story: It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and find a can of peas embedded in the side of your head.

Claire posing inside the school she built with her Momma...