What will we eat?

I could really go for a box of Girl Scout cookies right now.

Since I can't remember when my last post was, let me just fill you in on our eating habits around here.

The refrigerator gave up this week. On Monday I think. I got home Sunday night, mostly recovered, and on Monday morning when we all congregated for breakfast, the food wasn't as cold as it was supposed to be.

We ordered some coolers from T's mom and moved everything that could be frozen to the freezer and everything else into two coolers in the middle of my kitchen floor. After four days away and still not quite back to my regular energy level, we were running a camp kitchen on a filthy floor and the entire house was a dusty, dirty disaster.

T had cleaned just before I left, but with three hurricanes running through here every day it just wasn't enough to last.

On Tuesday my post-sickness appetite loss had vanished and the baby and I spent the day eating the perishables that weren't fairing so well in the coolers. I drank juice for perhaps the first time in a year and we polished off all the cheese.

Don't judge me.

On Wednesday, I tried to get back into my mostly vegan diet. Things in the refrigerator had gotten pretty stinky and so I moved the remaining produce to the garage and E and T spent the day at Home Depot, calling me to measure the opening the fridge sits in and arguing over acceptable appliances.

I had the kids that entire day and when they finally got home that night, new fridge ordered, I vanished as completely as I could manage.

Thursday morning the baby had his class and the new fridge was scheduled for delivery. Home Depot didn't show up at 7 like they said, and then not by 9 after T called to see what was going on. I emptied the condiments that had been left where food goes to die and rushed off to the library.

A scrawny woman with scrawny twins has been saying hello to Monkey lately. I've learned that she knows T and the whole family but I keep forgetting to ask her name or ask T about her. She's nice though and her kids don't do anything but cry and drool so she's left with nothing to do during the class. She smiles a lot at Monkey and she always is very chatty with me. A few of the other moms, actually, the other sprinkles of non-Jewish attendees always says hello to me and our kids play. But the Persian kids are normally stuck in their parents' arms, unable to socialize and therefore learning instead to be stand-offish and rude like the rest of Great Neck.

T keeps dreaming about moving away from here and the people like that, and as much as I would have fun living in the city, I think they were right to bring their family out to the 'burbs to be near relatives and schools and such. Tonight, after an especially long day here, she asked if we were all ready to go back to the city with her. I told her I'd go, but she'd need to hire a sitter because I would be out clubbing.

I invited her to come along, so E will be watching the kids should we ever pack up and go.

Anyway, we got through his class and T texted to say that the delivery men had come, had had to remove the kitchen door AND FRAME to get the beastly new fridge inside, but that it was there and would I please wipe it down and organize it my way.

We started our walk home, one of my favorite parts of taking Monkey out, when who should we meet on the road? E's psychotic mother!

Imagine my pleasure at seeing her car pull over and her panicked face when she saw her precious grandson wrapped up in his coat and blankets, enjoying a snack and a walk in 45 degree weather. She insisted we get in the car and no matter how much I told her we were fine, that the house was less than two minutes away ON FOOT and that it was more work to fold up the stroller and get into the car with no car seat, she would not give up. I finally threw the stroller into her trunk and got in.

Thirty seconds later we were home and she was telling me how she had gone to the library in a panic and asked them where the children were.

She played with Monkey while I threw a lunch together in the midst of piles of food and big red coolers and masses of packaging and tape and papers that had all come with the new refrigerator.

When I sat down to feed the baby she sat down too and kept playing with him so that he wouldn't eat.

Might I remind you that I had just been sick and I was still tired and I was hungry and she was screwing with my very precious schedule.

I told her he wasn't going to eat if she kept playing with him and she stopped for a second and then started again.

I said how much better he eats when no one else is around to distract him. HINT HINT HINT.

Finally I just said, "He's not going to eat if you're here. And he needs to go to bed in ten minutes."

"Oh, oh, should I go?" She finally got it. I cleared my throat and smiled.

"Well, I don't want to tell you to leave..."

She left, thanking me and praising me. Is that what she wants? To know that his schedule is my priority even if she's the one messing with me? Was she testing me?! BECAUSE I WAS IN NO MOOD FOR BEING TESTED.

It took me the rest of the day to clean up the kitchen and T's mom brought us dinner. We all spent the evening petting the shiny new stainless steel bright spot in our lives.

On Friday we realized there was no food in it.

After emptying the contents of the coolers we were left with condiments, pickles, vegan milk and a whole lot of soy sauce. Also, soy sauce doesn't need to be refrigerated, just so we're clear.

My entire diet has consisted of weird odds and ends this week. The baby is living off of tofu and what's left of our yogurt supply. The kids have cleaned us out of pretzels and chocolate, neither of which were in the fridge, but there it's not like there's anything in there so they stick to the basics.

Friday we suffered through Shabbat dinner at Mom E's house.

The only silver lining for the evening was that Hot Cousin or Nephew or Something was there with his perfect blue eyes and I got to talk to him.

No, wait, there was another moment of joy.

I had taken the kids into the little playroom there to color toward the end of the evening when they were tired and starting to fall apart. I had already fallen apart and I was playing on my phone while they colored quietly. E's nieces who I can't stand came into the room and sat down to color with the kids.

All was well for a few minutes until these girls, these grown adults, started fighting with the kids over which pages to color, which colors to use and which brand of broken twelve year old crayons to use.

The two older kids held their own and got their way against their cousins, but the poor baby had to fight a little harder. He doesn't even color; he's developed some OCD tendencies from hanging out with me. He sits nearby and picks up crayons as the kids put them down and puts them back into the bag they go in. He counts while he does it, just to appear REALLY crazy. He was happily cleaning and counting when one of his big cousins tried to take a crayon from him and get him to color.

He hit her in the face and then shot a glare at her. She gasped in shock and then looked at me.

"If you don't give the crayon back he's going to bite you next." I warned, but too late. As I spoke he leaned over and bit her.

"How did you know?!" She shrieked.

"He doesn't like to be screwed with." I pointed, still trying to warn, but she didn't act quickly enough.

He began beating her head with his fists and when I didn't move to stop him he got more aggressive. Finally, she gave him his crayon and I laughed and told her she and her sister were more trouble than the kids.

Her sister spent the entire time they were there coloring and telling the kids how poorly they colored and screeching, "Cute-acious!" about everything the kids said or did.

Color me annoyed.

When E said it was time to go I zipped through the house getting coats on everyone and hurried them all out the door. Mom E thanked me and kissed me and praised me the whole way out.

She is so lucky she loves me.

Today it dawned on me that no cleaning lady has come in two weeks so I manned up and cleaned the bathrooms while everyone was out this morning. The day passed quickly and yet tonight thinking back it all feels so long.

No one grocery shopped until evening so I threw together a hodgepodge chicken pot pie and E sat around crying all day about how sick he still is. Men are such crybabies. T's cousin came by to pick something up and mocked him for a bit. I like her.

We got through dinner and then E insisted he needed some ginger ale to settle his stomach so he and T went for a trip to the store while I finished up with the kids and their dinners.

We were down the veggies in the pie; everyone had eaten chicken and bread. R ate all her carrots and everything was golden. Only J was left. He tasted a carrot and didn't like it. I let him spit it out. He tasted a green bean and thought about it for a minute.

"I like it!" He was surprised, but he said it and he swallowed it.

"Ok," I was about to strike a deal. When J eats vegetables, it's best not to push it. "If you eat two more bites you can have dessert."

"Ice cream?"

"Yep."

"Ok!" Bright, happy, smiling. He put bite number two in his mouth and beamed at me. Stood up. Smile faded.

"What? Chew, J, chew. Have a drink."

"Ok." Drink. Sat on my lap. THANK GOODNESS, because it pointed his mouth the other direction. "My belly hurts." And then the vomit came.

He didn't just lose his dinner, he lost everything he had ingested for five hours before. Bread sticks, apples, yogurt, chicken and pie biscuits all came out in waves. He tried to catch it and it went all over his arms and feet and my legs. The floor, the couch, the table legs...

I told him not to move and herded the other two out of the room.

I started to gag and my stomach turned and I screamed at the dog to get the heck out of the room before something bad happened to him.

I opened a window and got a roll of paper towels and just started to cover the mess all over the room.

I had to leave poor J standing there in it so that I could catch my breath and not add to the grossness. I lit a scented candle before proceeding.

Once that was over I figured the night couldn't get any worse. J asked for ice cream while still covered in puke, so I don't know what horrible thing happened in his stomach but he seems fine now.

E and T came back and I tortured T with the story of what had just happened. She laughed and thanked me for taking care of it and expressed her relief at not having been here.

After all of that, none of the adults were very hungry for chicken pot pie so I put it away and we ate eggs.

We put all the kids to bed and that's when I decided to gather my things and hit the hay early. T had left my week's pay on the counter and I went to collect; a full week's pay even though I had been out sick. Our agreement when I started was that I wouldn't take paid sick days. Most of the time we all have our sick days together and I still contribute some sort of child care but this had been different and I had actually done nothing for two whole days and used up all their DayQuil.

Before going to my room I asked her if she realized she had paid me for those extra days. She shook her head and waved the thought away.

"Don't worry about it. I think you'll make it up." And she gestured to the puke room, which no one but the dog will go into right now.

I laughed and thanked her.

Puke and all, I have the best job in the world.

AND, now we even have groceries.