Bows, Vasectomies, and the Weekend I Gave Up and Skipped Church

I have a lot of problems in this life. Such as:

I have sturdy, German ankles and sometimes people ask, "Are your legs swelling?"

Jane has started calling me Liz.

Mabel bit me on the toe because I came in between her and a goldfish cracker.



For some reason I still feel the need to say "Exsqueeze me?" Like it's 1993.



My camera is going crazy, turning itself off at odd times, refusing to focus. Basically it's giving me the technological equivalent of a middle finger.



I've developed an allergy to fresh peaches, but I eat them anyway, and then I get migraines, and a weird rash, and I sit in a pile of ashes and cry, "WHY ME?"



But you know that quote from Emerson?



"Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds."



Well that's not my one of my problems.



I am not consistent. I can't remember where I put my keys. One day I get inspired to paint our dining room navy, the next week I paint it white. I love a tv show for a month, then decide I hate it. Things change day to day, minute to minute.



But thank you, Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson. It's good to know I don't have any hobgoblins hanging out up there in the cobwebs. Clowns? Maybe. A few brown recluses in the part of my brain that should be fully adept at math? Most definitely. But no hobgoblins.



So this weekend. I'm used to my own lack of consistency. But everyone else fell off their wagons too, and the Owen house became a black hole of chaos.



Matt had a vasectomy and Jane decided she couldn't possibly live her life without at least 30 bows in her hair at all times. Our entire world was thrown off its axis by these two things. Even Mabel felt the changes in our universe's rip tide, which is, I suspect, why she bit my toe.



I could tell you several hilarious things about Matt's vasectomy, but I won't. He's too sweet, it was too traumatic (not actually traumatic in the literal sense, but it did affect his man-parts so to HIM it was traumatic), and it's not my story to tell.



But I did spend a good deal of time monitoring medicine, and ice packs, and shuttling food trays up and down the stairs. Which is fine, I was glad to do it. But you throw in a two year old who has discovered the upper levels of her already Alvin-and-the-Chipmunk-like-vocal-chords, AND who has a bow fetish?



Let's just say I needed a drink.



Every fifteen minutes.



I kid.



Anyway. We made it to Sunday morning. I was looking forward to leaving my ice-pack loving husband behind, dropping my child off in class, and spending 50 heavenly minutes sitting in a chair by myself. And that's when this happened.

Jane walked into the bathroom with every part of her scalp swathed in bows, every color, every size.



"I do bows mommy."



I took a deep breath.



"Let's just pick one bow. How about the pink one?"



Jane threw herself prostrate on the ground, which reminded me it's been at least a month since I mopped the floors.



"NOOOOOOO. I do ALL THE BOWS!"



I backtracked, "OK, fine. You can wear all the bows."



But the damage was done.



Her sensitive swollen toddler ego was bruised, and in need of one of Daddy's ice packs.



"I DO ALL THE BOWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"



For a moment I considered the fact that her tears were doing a fairly decent job of cleaning the floors, and then I picked her up and put her in my lap.



"Watch Einstein?" she asked pitifully, bows jutting out in all directions like multicolored horns.



(Little Einsteins is a cartoon that strives to be educational about classical music and art, and while I appreciate that, it also makes my left eye twitch.)



We never made it to church. I totally gave up. But in a good way. Jane needed all the bows. She needed to sit in her eye-twitching mother's lap and watch Little Einsteins. Matt needed a human shuttle for his ice packs. Mabel needed goldfish crackers.



It's not too often that I can say I was defeated by bows, a schnauzer, and a vasectomy.



But church will always be there next week.