After They Come Home

Why does this shock me every time?

Why does it it amaze me in fact that within ten minutes of all three coming home, after seven hours STRAIGHT of all three being gone (the miracle of the post-pre-school playdate), in which I was so wonderfully accomplished, polite and cheerful, crossing off the items on my list with an upward, gleeful brushstroke, folding all their tiny clothes with love and ahhh, smells so sweet -- why does it amaze me that it is not only the silence of my house that evaporates (the kind of silence that I hate to shatter even with the sound of my own stinking voice), but also out the window goes any idea of order, of clean, of me being the woman I just was, NICE and SWEET and KIND and CALM.

But there I am in some kind of slo-mo dizziness each time they re-emerge from their lives without me, there I am in the middle of countless VERY IMPORTANT school papers (ie: recyclables) and gooey tops of fuschia yogurts, water gun damage dripping from the seat I just sat in, shouting the things I wouldn't have dreamed of shouting ten minutes before: "Speak one at time!" "You will know I am ready to talk to you when I look at you and am not shaking my hand in your face!" "No you can not do that -- probably ever," "Does anybody pay attention to anybody else in this house? I said never!" "Put it down; it's a knife!" "FLUSH THE DAMN TOILET!"

There I am, hands on hips, hands on forehead, hands making that shoo-shoo sign which is shorthand for leave me the hell alone for two seconds, in my twilight zone episode of motherhood, experiencing this which I have experienced so many times before as if I were experiencing it all for the first freaking time. Was the house really clean? Quiet? Was I ever nice to anyone ever? Was it all just a... a... dream?