Friday night and our cozy little problems

Everyone is posting about the weather today. It was one of those spectacular January days -- warm, so warm I was comfortable outside in just a sweatshirt, with mostly sunny skies, the air heavy with the damp promise of spring. We have these days every year, in January even, but Washingtonians forget this. We forget, in the midst of our ongoing complaints about the rain, that sunshine always, always returns before we believe it will. Even if it's just a glimpse, a few fresh afternoon hours.

When the kids and I burst through the back door tonight, arms full of groceries and mail, I immediately noticed that the dog had barfed all over the floor. We narrowly missed stepping in it. That's the silver lining, I suppose; I know I've written somewhere in this blog that any day you don't step in dog barf in your bare feet is better than one in which you do.

I don't know what my point is, really. Maybe just that I couldn't muster the energy to be upset about it. The kids were immediately wanting things -- snacks, milk, attention -- and I was all, "You are going to have to wait for two seconds, because I am cleaning up dog barf." Suzannah accepted this and busied herself with getting out her crayons and paper. A moment later she called from the kitchen, "What if I need something?"

"You're going to have to wait for a minute. Or you can get it yourself. You can reach the graham crackers, kiddo."

"Okay. But...what if I need something I can't reach?"

"You'll either wait, or you'll shrivel up and blow away because you've starved to death. Except that won't really happen, so maybe you can just wait a second. Because dog barf."

Suzannah considered this. "Okay," she said finally. A few moments later, she called, "Mom? Are you done cleaning up the dog barf yet?"

I don't know. The moment was so casual and chaotic at the same time -- I was scrambling to get the appropriate groceries into the freezer plus I was trying to get out my nifty little carpet cleaner that blasts out these little problems and keep the dog out of the way because her way of helping is to eat the problem, which, now that I think about it, is not so bad. I could have had more to clean. And yet my daughter was all, "Well, that's kind of gross. Isaac, would you like a graham cracker? Mom, I think Isaac wants to watch Veggie Tales, so when you're done cleaning up the dog barf can you get that out for us?"

There has to be a metaphor in this somewhere. I would find it and write poetic things, but I also woke up feeling pretty gross this morning. It seems I've finally come down with the crud everyone else has been fighting, despite my psychotic bouts of hand-washing and sanitizing; strangely enough, though, it feels almost cozy. Like, oh, hi, cold, let's dress you up in flannel pajama pants and feed you some Nyquil and/or a nice hot toddy while the kids watch a video -- you can run for your Best Mom Ever award next month. I had plans to cook this great big healthy dinner with lots of veggies and brown rice tonight, but I've had a pile of the kids' laundry covering our bed all day and I can barely manage to care about that, let alone spend time chopping onions and shredding carrots. Plan B: I whined to Matt, and he is bringing home an order of pho. In the meantime, I dug around in the freezer for something to stick in the oven for the kids. (Obviously, they're enjoying that far more than they would the veggies and brown rice.)

I'm sure I'd be feeling much more grumpy about all this if it were a Monday. As it stands, though, I wonder if maybe this is my body's way of telling me to just slow down a bit, that maybe it's okay if I skip a run, and that if my worst problem is a phlegmy cough that I can treat with whiskey and lemon and honey and Nyquil and a good night's sleep, then I should probably just curl right up with that problem and read it a bedtime story.

And, after all, I didn't step in the fresh dog barf. And it was a beautiful day, a day I noticed even when I spent most of it wishing for a nap. And I will have pho very soon. And tomorrow no one will really mind if I look a little gross or act a little out of it. The one real, persistent worry at the back of my mind is that my kids will get this crud, too, because January has not historically been a fabulous month for us, and March has been horrible (kidney infection, nasty flu), but all I can do is what I can do. I can wash my hands. I can sleep, because it is the weekend and I have a wonderful husband who will let me do that. I can pray. I can trust that we will survive whatever comes tomorrow, and I can try not to worry so much.

The universe has not been kind this week. People I love are hurting a great deal. Friends have lost people they love. Friends have been sick with far worse than a cold. Friends have had their hearts broken. In light of all that, it is difficult to feel very upset about having to clean my floors on a Friday night, or about nursing myself through a gross but strangely, almost comfortably familiar cold. These are handleable problems. I have the Bissell Spotbot Pet Handsfree Spot and Stain Cleaner. Veggie pho. Orange juice. Green tea (with optional delicious additives.) Comfy pajamas. Netflix. The prospect of sleeping in a bit.

The kids and I stood outside on the driveway tonight to gaze at the moon, full and bright, just above the trees. Just a little while later the rains returned. But the warmth, the breeze, the sunshine and later the bright shining moon -- they were all little signs of grace, little reminders that spring comes back, that January always, at some point, surprises us with its greenness. Even if it snows next week, I want to remember this one beautiful grace-filled afternoon, this comfortable evening, dog barf and phlegm and all, and I would like to respectfully request that the universe share a little of this goodness with the people who could really use it.