Friday night hijinks

Friday night is date night at our house.  Friday used to be pizza night and Saturday was date night.  That was back when our children were less aware of the fact that pizza is good and movies are fun to watch.  When the children started asking when they were going to get to watch a movie and eat pizza too, Friday was declared date night - sometimes it was a leave the house date and sometimes it was a stay at home and eat pizza date - and Saturday family night.  So when the children ask when they can watch a movie, we remind them that Saturday is family movie night so go to bed a leave us alone while we eat pizza, okay?

Recently date night has been much more of the stay at home and eat pizza variety.  I'm not going to leave Eleanor with a babysitter until she's reliably asleep when we leave, and that has only started happening in the past week or two.  So we've watched a lot of Redbox movies in the last two and a half months and even I'm getting a little tired of pizza.  I'm hoping to go out next week.  Fingers crossed.

Last Friday was another pizza date night, so I brought the boys in from swimming around five so I could feed and put them to bed them before Brandon and I enjoyed our own dinner in front of our movie.  Kathleen and Sophia had been sick with fevers that day, so they had been left home.  Which, I suppose, was fair as the boys had missed swimming the day before for their own sick day.

We didn't have a movie, however, so I left Brandon feeding everyone leftover borsch while I enjoyed a little evening drive to our local 7-eleven.  Every time I leave the house to get a movie or one item at the grocery store or take out, I savor the joy of being in America where I can run to Target not once, but twice a day for something I suddenly realized I needed.  And then I think ahead to Dushanbe where mail comes once a month - if you're lucky - and wonder how I'm going to survive.

Movie in hand, I walked through the door twenty minutes after I left, and told Brandon about a CIA analyst who writes spy novels - maybe some of our friends know him?  Eleanor was hungry and ready to go to bed, so I fed her and put her down before getting to work on the pizza.  I reached for the cheese grater to get to work on the mozzarella cheese.  I hate grating cheese.  Really, I hate grating anything, but especially cheese.  I always end up grating at least one knuckle, and at the end there's always that lump of smeary cheese that refuses to be grated and is too big to put on the pizza.

Brandon was busy with the children, however, so cheese grating was mine.  I looked in the refrigerator, rummaging around in the cheese drawer.  Goat cheese, parmesan, cheddar, feta (how I love America and its selection of cheeses), but no mozzarella.  Then I remembered telling myself last pizza night to not forget about buying more mozzarella.

This time I got to listen about corn prices on NPR.  Did you know that corn is down a dollar a bushel from last year?

It's a good thing Safeway is about a mile from our house.

By the time I got back home - this time with a block of mozzarella in hand - the children were almost done with dinner.  I got down - again - to dinner, sautéing mushrooms and slicing kalimata olives from their obnoxious pits.  And grating cheese.  Brandon chased the children around, issuing increasingly dire threats about getting their teeth brushed - now - while trying to slice up onions.

Sophia, still sick, was laying on the couch all ready for bed.  Suddenly she sat up.  "My stomach feels funny," she announced.  I looked up from the mushrooms; maybe she hadn't had enough to eat?  "I feel like I'm going to throw up," she continued.  Sophia and Kathleen are both paranoid about vomiting.  I think they get it from their mother.

I turned back to the mushrooms and shrugged, "Well, you'd better go to the bathroom." It's always better to be safe than sorry.

I glanced back to see Sophia rush to the bathroom, hand clutched over her mouth.  About ten seconds later her desperate wail floated back to me.  "Moooooom!  I threw up!!!"

I looked at Brandon.  He looked at me.  He sighed in disgust and headed to the bathroom.  I guiltily finished with the mushrooms.  Then I bravely checked out the damage.

Brandon likes to tell a story about one of his brothers who was sick.  After making a trip to the facilities, he came out and announced that he had thrown up in bathroom.  Brandon's mother told him to go to bed and she would get to the bathroom in a minute.  When she finally made it she realized that her son hadn't been kidding - he had thrown up in the entire bathroom, liberally coating everything within splashing distance.

I always wondered how that had happened.  Now I know.  Fluid dynamics are pretty amazing, especially in small bathrooms with lots of splashable surfaces.

Now, I'm not a publicly affectionate person.  It's my goal never to write any Facebook posts about how my husband is the best husband in the the entire world.  I know he is, so there's no need to try and prove it to anyone else.  But I have to set aside my own principles this one time.

Brandon really is the most amazing husband.  While I finished dinner and got the children ready for bed, Brandon cleaned up the entire bathroom, scooping up Sophia's lunch and dinner off the floor, scrubbing it off the wall, wiping it off the bottom of the toilet, rinsing it off the bathmat, washing it off the door and bathtub, and cleaning it off the diaper pail.  He spent over half an hour doing something a abhor simply because he knows I hate vomit.  When I offered to do it - he waved me off.  "I'm your husband," he told, "and it's my job to do the hard things so that you don't have to."  Flowers on Valentine's Day are nice, but I think cleaning up vomit may be even better.

After putting everyone down to bed - Sophia with a bowl - Brandon showered while I finally finished the pizza.  Then we watched our movie.  And ate our pizza.  And there was no more vomit.

Next week, we're going out to eat.