Spending time in the kitchens

"How was your day dear?" my wife asks me as I walk in the door.

"Great!" I say in a sarcastic tone, "how was yours?"

In the background you can hear the familiar tune of "A, B, C, D...." as our son stands in front of out fridge repeatedly pressing a button that plays the song over and over... yet he never lets it get to any farther than D.

"Oh, it was good..." she continues, talking as she rumages through our pantry, most likely looking for something to cook us dinner for that evening. "Just a few more days until summer starts..."

I am also excited about the idea of summer because this summer will be my first I can actually enjoy without the lingering and painful thought of having to register for another semester of school. I am graduating this May and am so very excited about the accomplishment. Now, I say this in hopes that I pass my three remaining classes and that the party my wife has been planning for a month will not go all to waste.

"Oh, I'm ready for some warm weather..." I say. "We really need a vacation."

A vacation is not in our near future, however, due to the bundle of joy that the stork is dropping off at our door step come the end of June. I see him on the radar getting closer every day whenever I wake up and see that my wife, Laura's, belly is expanding at an alarming rate.

"My back is killing me," says Laura. "I feel like Elle just can't get comfortable for some reason."

We have decided to call our little girl "Elle." You may be a bit confused, but it is pretty simple, it isn't pronounced, "Ellie" it is just like the magazine or letter! Her full name is Estelle Lillian, but we are going to call her "Elle" for short. Sweet, simple, classy... well, atleast we think so.

"Dadadadadada," my son says as he come toddling to me at a quickening pace.

"Boom!" Laura and I say in unison. He gets to going so fast he can't seem to stop so he inevitably falls face down. Then we wait, we wait for the cry or the laugh. Thankfully this time he became distracted by a toy he saw on the floor near by and headed that way over to "his" kitchen area that his Aunt and Grandmother purchased for him at a garage sale. It is a pretty impressive set up he has, however, I will say the lack of food in his kitchen makes it seem like he is in a baby recession. Maybe they sell the food and baby food stamps too!

"Oh that's the correct place for this," Laura says as she opens the little, silver fridge door.

"What is it?" I asked.

"His phone, he put his phone and a blue block in his fridge," Laura said.

"Well, maybe that's where he knew he'd find it!" I said. "If I remember correctly you seem to misplace things a lot nowadays!"

"It's because I'm pregnant," she continued. "I can't help it!"

She reached down to pick up our little boy who was quickly pulling everything out of the cabinets where we keep "his" bowls. The bowls were actually a wedding gift from, well, I actually don't remember, but we still use them to cook with, but due to the multicoloredness they seem to make for fun play items for a 13 month old.

"Da!" Mauldin retorted. His right arm quickly rose and he pointed in the direction of the stairs, no where near where "daddy" was standing.

"Mauldin," I said. "Gimme five."

He quickly patted my right hand and proceeded to clap as if he knew he had done something correct.

"Yay!" We all clapped to show we approved of his accomplishment.

"Okay, Mauldin, are you ready for bath time?" I asked as if I was expecting a competent "why yes father, I would appreciate you taking me upstairs so I can bathe this evening... and afterwards I would prefer a massage while you sing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and we can end the evening with a rendition of my favorite story, Pat them gently.

Instead all I got was "Da!"

One day at a time.