Almost Turned a Profit

Over the weekend, the gardening ALMOST turned a profit. We have been plucking tomatoes like nobody’s business. Cucumbers and peppers too. So my parents came to visit over the weekend. They hadn’t been down in a while but must have feared for the kid’s safety. They knew I was alone with them all weekend and wanted to make sure I had not killed them yet. So my mom saw all the great tomatoes we had. She made herself at home and prepared a to-go basket. I pulled out the produce scale to give her the weight and price. Cha-ching. Then she started in on the whole ‘gave birth to you’ and ‘carried you around for nine months’ guilt trip. So I had to give her a discount.

I survived the weekend without the wife. I even got along with the kids most of the time. We went to the pool, hung out at the house, picked dozens of apples from my apple tree. Their new thing is to have one child climb to the top of the tree and shake it like a friggin ape until a couple dozen apples fall down. Then they walk all around the house eating apples and leaving half eaten apples everywhere. The baby now walks with her apple and, imitating her older siblings, spits apple peels all over my floors. Awesome. The kids were surprisingly good and it was a good weekend. I figured I had this parent thing down finally.

Then came yesterday. The wife went to work and I only had TWO hours to watch the kids. We finished dinner. We did baths. Things were running smoothly. Then the wheels fell off. In the span of one hour, all went to hell. The baby would not go to sleep, opting instead to scream like she was in a slasher film for forty minutes. If that wasn’t enough brain trama, I had to correct some of the kid’s math problems. Somehow they forgot everything they knew in a span of one hour. It was like pulling teeth. After my second attempt to get the demon spawn to sleep, I attempt to say prayers with the kids only to see one of the cats has decided to use my carpet as a launching ground for his puke. After cleaning that up and getting all but one kid to bed, I try to finish her math with her and give up a couple problems short around thirty minutes after I had planned on freedom. A quick kiss goodnight and I am free. But no. The little demon boy needs me to sleep with him. I pass out in his room and wake up around 10:30, go downstairs to close up shop and the wife is getting home from work. She inquires about something not done and I go up to bed.

On a much, much lighter note. I got a call from Nosaj. Seems the shoutout about the pregnancy last week got him scared. Nope buddy it isn’t your old lady this time.