I run a monthly book club, because I like to read and I love getting together with a small group of women to chat about our husbands books. We meet once a month, stuffing our faces with chocolate (because it’s the only time we get to eat it without kids or husbands around) and pouring each other wine until way past our bedtimes.
Husband and the boys know when it’s time for my book club meeting, because I’m typically in the kitchen trying to finish icing those dark chocolate brownies with the dark chocolate buttercream icing I just whipped up in a bowl (because I’m also OCD about the food we eat). (Also, just a note for all you foodies: Don’t ever ask me for recipes, unless you want to get angry enough to karate chop my face. I’m terrible at recipes. I know how I make things, and I’m not sharing. Mostly because I don’t even know how it happens. I just pour and mix and get lucky. My mom called me the other day asking how I make my delicious icing. “Um…butter, vanilla extract and powdered sugar,” I said lamely. Just look it up, guys. We live in a Pinterest world, after all.)
My book club ladies and I meet late enough in the evening where I can help with after-dinner chores and bathing the boys and even beginning their evening story time so Husband isn’t completely overwhelmed with putting six boys to bed (It takes 16 people to do a good job. Since it’s just the two of us most of the time, that means we’re doing a…perfect job, of course.).
But sometimes my pumpkin sugar cookie experiment doesn’t quite (shockingly!) turn out the way I really wanted it to, and I have to take a quick trip to the store for some Unreal chocolate candy. In which case, I usually leave right after dinner and so Husband has to execute the after-dinner chores six-on-one. He says he’ll be just fine. I think it probably won’t happen. He says of course they’ll do their chores. I think yeah right. I don’t say what I’m thinking, of course. I wouldn’t want to defeat the man before I’m even out the door. I’ll let him try.
You can see from the picture that after-dinner chores obviously didn’t happen. Why are yesterday’s onions still sitting in that bowl, on top of the cutting board you cut them on like they didn’t even move? Answer: Because only a crazy person would touch after-dinner chores with six boys and only one parent home to referee. I totally understand. I don’t like it, but what am I going to do? Certainly not stay home.
I’ve been running this book club for more than a year now. I have returned home at 11 p.m. to Husband playing some songs to friends on periscope and an 8-year-old still reading upstairs in the library because someone forgot to tell him it was time for lights out. I have returned to 3-year-old twins dressed in their seven-month-old brother’s pajamas (It’s not even spandex. It’s a second skin with dinosaurs on it.) because someone didn’t check to make sure they weren’t tearing their room apart with already-folded clothes. I have returned to a 5-year-old curled up on the floor outside our bedroom and Husband in the bedroom with headphones on watching a movie.
It’s not that Husband can’t handle six boys. I mean, he was a boy himself once. He’s told me horror stories about the things that he and his brother used to do (We have so much coming). We just do things differently, that’s all.
Yeah. We just do things differently.
So, when I’m done shaking my head about how that rock-hard piece of bread possibly made it past the eyes of the parent on duty who wasn’t me and into the top bunk of a 3-year-old, where it was smashed all underneath his thrashing body during the night (because that’s how 3-year-olds sleep), I usually just thank Husband for trying again.
Cleaning up a toilet papered bathroom is totally worth taking a mom’s night out. Every single time.
