Spilled Milk
Have you ever cried over spilled milk? I'm not talking about the kind in the carton. I'm talking about the little things, that in an already chaotic day (or life as in my case) send you over the edge. I cried over spilled milk last week. In this case my spilled milk was a Halloween costume.
We found a Snow White dress in the toddlers department at Target. It was perfect, knit on top, frilly in the bottom, perfect fit. Fancy without going overboard. Perfect for a little three year old who hates anything itchy. So I bought it, in September when I should have been buying milk and eggs and cheese. Because that's what you do, you forgo the staples and get the fluff when the bulls eye has you in it's trance.
So for almost three weeks I was set. Caitlin's costume was bought in August after an Internet search for Skelita/Monster High. We had it two days into the school year, hanging in her closet, Googling make up and hair tutorials. Mac was now the proud owner of her own Snow White dress, not a shredded hand me down from her sister. We were two weeks and counting until Halloween when Mac told her teacher at school:
I'm going to be Minnie Mouse.
Awesome. So I asked Mac repeatedly for three days, what she wanted to be for Halloween and she repeatedly said, Minnie Mouse. Back to Target and back to the drawing board. Thankfully Target still had a good selection of Minnie Mouse costumes, and we picked out a pink one. They also had a black and red one in the toddlers section with the knit top, that I suggested we buy because it wouldn't be itchy like the pink one. Because the pink one has sequins and fluff. But Mac could not get behind the much more subdued black and red Minnie, so we brought home the pink one.
As soon as we tried it on Mac started whining. It's too itchy. It's too scratchy. It's, it's it's...
And I lost myself for a brief moment.
I yelled. I gave the "I warned you, and you should listen to your mother" speech.
Have I mentioned that Mac is three?
That all speeches that begin with I warned you, or you should listen to your mother are absolutely lost on her?
And while she cried big tears and apologized to me, (believe me the guilt was actually pouring out of me as I went into cold sweaty panic that I had just ruined Halloween and Minnie Mouse) I realized exactly what I was doing:
Crying over spilled milk.
I was crying over a Halloween costume. One that was the second try in what I feared was going to be a long line of exchanges. Then I remembered that I was the Mom, the adult, the decision maker. I didn't have to take back that costume. I didn't even need to take back Snow White. I could just make her wear the one she had, because there are orphans out there that have to wear sheets and in my day we got what we got...
And then I remembered that I can't make my kids do a damn thing. No one wears sheets anymore, and in my day, I got whatever I wanted because my mom is a saint.
So yes, from time to time I cry over spilled milk. Sometimes spilled milk is in the form of kids who don't eat their veggies. Sometimes it's kids who don't want to do their homework, or get in the bath, or refuse to stop jumping on the couch. Sometimes spilled milk is toys all over the house, clothes on the floor, burned dinner, and realizing there is no bread the night before the school is serving whatever your child would refuse even in a zombie apocalypse.
Last week I cried over a Halloween costume.
This week I'll cry over something else, because there is no shortage of milk to spill in motherhood.
