The timer was beeping on the oven to alert me that my two loaves of delicious homemade whole wheat bread were ready. (It had been one of those rare productive mornings, and I was feeling pretty good about all the schooling and baking we had accomplished so far.) I slid the loaf of delicious homemade gluten free bread aside and was removing my two newest loaves to the cooling rack when cries of panic alerted me that I was needed upstairs.
I tucked Levi under my arm and dashed up the stairs to Caleb's room, where I found Jacob gleefully tossing the little sponges we use as quiet time blocks high into the air.
"Jacob broke my tower!" Caleb calmly and quietly informed me.
No, actually he screamed it. But I wish he had calmly and quietly informed me, because then his screaming wouldn't have upset the baby, who proceeded to scream along with him.
I took stock of the situation and noticed that not only had Jacob completely demolished whatever Caleb had been working on, he had also torn the corners off of most of the sponges and left them littering the floor like tiny pieces of confetti.
With the baby still under my arm, I headed to get the vacuum cleaner while calmly instructing my children to put the sponges away.
No, actually, I barked orders at them over my shoulder as I ran down the hall. But looking back, I should have calmly instructed them instead. There's always next time.
When I returned, the sponges were miraculously put away, leaving only the confetti for me to vacuum up before I could get back to the lunch-making that had been interrupted.
I made one pass with the vacuum, then listened as it sputtered and died. A faint smell of smoke filled the room.
Turns out not all the sponges had been put away, and one had managed to wedge itself into the belt in my vacuum cleaner.
I know this, because that is where I found it when I disassembled the machine to find an explanation for the smoke and smell of burning rubber.
A moment later, Justin called to see how my day was going. Unable to put it into words at that moment, I took this picture to try to explain.
Eventually the floor was clean, the family was fed, and naptime came, as it always does, to reset my afternoon.
And now I've kept my promise to myself, the one I made to write all this down so that one day I'd look back and remember: it doesn't just feel like I'm taking one step forward and two steps back. Some days, I actually am.
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