Saturday, July 14, 2012

Futility, thy name is Mama.


Why do I do this?
Re-attach the Little People plastic silo to the barn every night.

Think I’m going to remember which stack of clothes in the drawer belongs to which size. What I should do, is just have a “too small” drawer, sort it every time it gets full, and box the clothes by size. The trouble is that last step—I sort it, think, “I’m sure a box will come along before I need to put this stack away.” It doesn’t. Back in the drawer! Re-sort! Re-sort is SO different from resort. Though, it is oddly soothing.

Save EOBs for more than a year. Am I going to be nostalgic for how much Blue Shield covered for the audiologist? Am I going to be tested on this?

Think that someday, “Cookie” magazine will send me more alphabet stickers, and I can finish labeling the binders that look like “I__B_L” and “J_M__”.

Balance my toothbrush on top of stacked men’s razors in the medical cabinet. It will always fall down into the sink when I open the cabinet the next morning. In my defense, the toothbrush cup also often mysteriously falls down, but onto the floor.

Give the "Band-Aid lecture" about how Band-Aids are for when there's blood (a little simplified, I know), and then worry that the constant stream of hurts are actually intentional attempts to draw blood in order to acquire the coveted Band-Aids. Just give them the Band-Aids already. Accept that they are small child body art, and that they must be placed in the exact, invisible location of the deadly injury caused by stepping on a single unpopped popcorn kernel.

Think, at the grocery store, that there is enough milk at home and that I don’t have to get another gallon.
Similarly, think: “We have eggs, don’t we?” The answer is always, “Yes, we have ONE egg. In a closed egg carton that looks optimistically full.” Also, by the time you get home, someone will have added it to pancake mix that doesn’t require eggs. He will also replace the empty egg carton, closed, in the fridge. You will discover this halfway through making chocolate chip cookies.

Thank goodness I’ve stopped:
Stacking the Ikea children's plates in rainbow order

Ditto with the Ikea children's cups

Keeping the HIPAA forms. You can tell a veteran hospital mom because she takes it, says “thanks”, and then gives it back with some deprecatory remark about shelves full of medical binders. Because you do have to take it, but you can also give it back. :)

4 comments:

Christine said...

Are you insane Hermana? Rainbow order for the IKEA plates? I'm laughing out loud. I can just see you organizing them at the counter while your children are in the other room doing who knows what? And your baby is screaming for milk as you say "Just a second honey . . . red. . . orange . . . what do you think comes next? yellow or pink?"

R Matta said...

Luckily, there is no red, Christine. I guess pink usurped it. :) I'm still sometimes tempted to take the dishes out of the dishwasher in rainbow order.

I resist.

Unknown said...

I will never give up on rainbow order.

Also, care to have a dozen eggs delivered to Mom & Dad's each week? Or even, gasp, TWO dozen eggs?

Anonymous said...

Our Ikea plates are long since all scratchy-looking. I don't know why I haven't replaced them. Last time I was there we bought drinking glasses and I didn't even think about plates.

Also, I have had about ten of the great big plastic bins full of partly-sorted outgrown clothes on the deep windowsill in my room for, um, two years? Three? I put them there so they'd be handy when I had time to sort them. The saddest part is that there are things in there my kids may have grown into and outgrown while they sat there.