The Slaughter

When Sarah texted me Saturday afternoon, Sammy and I were in the middle of slaughtering a pumpkin, gutting the cute little squash he’d brought home from pre-school. We had carried an old table from the garage into the kitchen and scrubbed it clean in anticipation of our ravioli-making playdate. Sam sat at the kitchen counter using knives and vegetable peelers and whatever tools he deemed necessary to extricate the meat from the inside of our little pumpkin. I stood near the stove chopping the pieces into a saucepan filled with melted butter and fresh garden sage and thyme. I had sent Sarah a text that we were making the pumpkin filling and she and the boys could come over any time. They didn’t need to wait.

I half expected her to call and tell me they weren’t coming, that they were too tired from their overbooked Saturday and they wouldn’t be coming after all. HALF expected. It seems everyone I know is overwhelmed and overscheduled and feeling the stress of the lack of sunlight and it is not an easy time of year to parent.

Last week on the way home from gymnastics on Tuesday, Sammy asked me what that triangle thing on the dash was. I glanced down at the emergency button just long enough for the car to go up and over something with a thud as we crossed one of the two bridges near the Hillside Fish House. We were going at least 60, and the car thudded and I just focused on keeping the car moving rather than trying to figure out what the tan shape that I saw for a split second out of the corner of my eye was. 7pm on the country roads away from town, the world outside our headlights was pitch black. For a moment my heart raced and I felt tears starting to build in my eyes. I tried to accelarate, imagining us stranded at the side of the road, me alone with an already whiny teething baby and a 3-and-½-year-old who hadn’t stopped reminding me that he’s thirsty for more than 30 seconds since we’d left Kidsport. Once I figured out that the car wasn’t accelerating because it had thrown itself into neutral, I moved the gear shift back to D and focused on just getting home. One mile at a time. Just get it home, I thought.

When I first graduated from college and went to work, I remember a guy I worked with telling me he hated November, he always got sick in November. And I’ve never really been a fan of it either… that cold gray month where nothing really happens except that the days get shorter and the temperatures get colder and everything turns gray. The best of fall is behind us and the beauty of winter hasn’t yet arrived. November is what I envision when I read about Dr. Seuss’s The Waiting Place. Nothing happening but a bunch of waiting.

And so when I read Sarah’s text, I was kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop, the apology and request to reschedule, something I had experienced twice in the 24 hours before that. Twice that I’d had to explain to Sammy that something he had been excited about was not going to happen. Dear God, let Sarah and her boys come to make pasta. Please, Dear God.

It turned out Sarah’s text was just a note to tell us what time they’d arrive and that she was leaving her oldest at home. It would be just the mommies and the 4-year-olds. Well, and one very well-behaved one-year-old.









Many of the mommy blogs I read and a lot of friends on facebook seem to be doing gratitude journals these days… perhaps as a way of surviving The Waiting Place, a way of looking at what’s right in front of you and appreciating it rather than anticipating the end of the great wait. If I were keeping a gratitude journal for this past weekend, it would include a friend who comes through when you really need her, a baby that sits contentedly in her high chair while larger children smear the kitchen with egg and flour, homemade pumpkin ravioli with garlic cream sauce, a car that runs like a tank (knock on wood) and children who are still able to hug you and laugh after you have a mommy tantrum.

The 80's band that lives at our house

Sam's favorite red frisbee game

Drawing things that start with T