My pantry is stacked with cans, boxes, bags of rice.  The spice rack seems to multiply, spilling forth little colorful bottles every time we open the door even though it already takes up an entire cabinet. The door of the fridge is crammed with little jars and anonymous bottles.  The shelves in the freezer are about to collapse beneath their burdens of heavy blocks of leftovers and mystery bundles tucked into every nook. 

But there is nothing for dinner. NOTHING. Tonight I will stand in the kitchen at 4 P.M. with a vague feeling of panic gnawing at my diaphragm.  Moving from pantry to open fridge to open freezer in a rhythmic dance, all the containers will develop a blurred quality of total uselessness. 

I resorted, one weekend long ago, to taking a written inventory of all the miscellany crowding the shelves, even going so far as to organize the contents by main dish and sides.  It seemed so logical, it felt so freeing to actually see that I could, in fact, make a meal with only the food in my kitchen.

But there is STILL nothing for dinner. The universe has assigned evil pixies to my kitchen who transform the bounty into total uselessness at 3:55 P.M. every single day, leaving nothing but peanut butter and jelly and 3 bags of bread with only the end crusts left.

Perhaps that seems a little unhinged, but as the saying goes, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t really after you.

This weekend it was freezing cold and icy and generally unpleasant in the out-of-doors. While it’s always fun to curl up with book and blanket on days like that the children running amok with cabin fever can really put a damper on my relaxation. The day passed in interludes of silence, as the girls settled down to coloring and make-believe in the playroom, interspersed with total explosive havoc as their energy blew up in fits of temper, crying and whining. I watched all this in resignation, knowing that my days of being stuck in the house with the kids were on the rise as surely as the temperature was beginning to fall for the season.

Half-way through Saturday (that’s less than one day into Cabin Fever snowbound madness) Kurt, interrupted from his computer again, sighed and said, “I wish there was something we could go DO, but we’re just stuck in here all day and they’re driving me CRAZY.”

I stared. I gave him The Look. I generally sent massively incredulous and sarcastic waves of energy in his direction. Seriously, man? You’re going to complain after only FIVE HOURS!? I have at least SIX MONTHS of these kind of days awaiting me! I will spend the entire winter tearing my hair out trying to think of something, anything, to do to pass the time and let off steam. I will spend days and days and days in the mall just so they can run around somewhere warm while I’m beaten down with screams for treats and toys on display. We will invade the library until the librarian kicks us out because they cannot be silenced. I will play seven hundred thousand games of Candyland and Memory and Chutes and Ladders. Countless hours will go into bundling them up to play outside only to come back in 10 minutes later because it’s too cold or someone has to pee.  I will have to say “NO” all day long as they beg to watch TV until my nerves crack and I throw on something long enough to let me drink a cup of tea sweetened with rum.

And it still won’t be enough. Their cooped up energy will never be spent. And you have the nerve to moan tragically about five measly little hours?

All I said, though, was, “Yeah, honey. This is what it’s like at home in the winter.”

Am I a super-model of restraint or what?

I’ve had a “You’re Next” morning.

I can’t claim the title I’ve given my morning.  My good friend, Cassie, came up with the handle.  It fits so well, though, that I regularly find myself using it.  This is how “You’re Next” mornings go…

I wake up an hour before everyone else so that I can start a load of laundry, pack lunches and begin breakfasts. While I’m doing this, the dog stares at me…

“You’re next,” I say.

Then I go roust the girls. As I pass my husband in the hallway, he says, “Any chance you can take my clothes to the dry cleaner today?”

I say, “yes,” but I think in a not-so placatory, rather sing-song voice, “You’re next.”

I hustle down to my computer to see what awaits and a client has sent me changes to a script I wrote the day before. I type, “You’ll have this back by noon.”  I think, “You’re next.”

Still… the dog follows me.  Ever the optimist.  “You’re next,” I say aloud.  I only say it aloud to him.  He forgives me every time.

I head back to the girls’ room to make it perfectly clear that, yes, they really do have to get up NOW!  I turn around and the cat is sitting right in the middle of the hallway.

To her, I say, “Your time may never come. Get used to it.”

Back downstairs to throw the laundry in the dryer so that the girls have the beloved tights they need. To the kitchen where my husband is making his lunch and the girls are sitting on the floor next to the heat duct.  I keep them moving by getting them to the table where their breakfast awaits.

I finally go to the bathroom to pee, taking a quick glance into the mirror, I think, “You’re next.” Adding quickly to myself, “I do get priority over the damned cat!”

Run into the dog in the hallway.

“OK, come on. You’re next!” He bounds like an insane, slobbering puppy downstairs even though he is becoming a feeble old man.  I feed him. On my way up the stairs, I pass the cat. To be honest. I just feel like NOT serving one member of this family out of spite and the cat drew the short straw. She’s 17. She should be dead by now.

I’m next!

I pour my coffee and head to the shower, knowing the cat is outside the bathroom door. I can feel it. If I just fed her, then I wouldn’t see her the rest of the day! But I know I’m in one of those moods when I just can’t be mature enough to snap out of my self-pity long enough to serve the last member of this family.

It’s just that kind of day. Only 7am and I know that I’m going to feel slightly annoyed by every little task that I normally do without thinking twice. I simply don’t want to be the mother, the wife, the kennel-keeper today.

But finally, because I have kept this feline alive for 17 years so why not one more day, I do feed the cat.

And the day begins.

“Mom, if you never, never, EVER make me wash the dishes EVER again, I promise I will do everything else twice as much, twice as fast and twice as good!”

That was my 15 year old daughter Rocky, who really hates to wash the dishes, but it could have been me 35 years ago.  At 15 I had determined that I was too young for dish pan hands so I avoided the sink as much as possible.  For that matter I avoided the vacuum and the washing machine as well.  I was more of a ‘mess maker’ than a ‘cleaner upper’ so I can relate with my daughter.

Except that I know: twice as much of nothing is nothing; twice as fast as not at all is never; and twice as good as bad is still bad. 

Like I said, it could have been me. 

So what did I do about Rocky?  I did what my Mama did for me… I washed the dang dishes myself  just so we’d have clean plates to eat off of.

Grrrr!  I hate washing dishes!  I remember naively thinking that with so many children, once they started doing chores I’d NEVER, EVER have to wash dirty dishes again!  Yeah, well, that NEVER, EVER happened.  I still have to wash dishes every day.

I should have stuck with having pets instead of children.  I guess I missed that lesson from Mama.  Or maybe she just never shared it with me.  You know the old saying:  “Grandchildren are parents’ revenge…” 

My morning chores checklist yesterday included the following:

Beds made? Check.

Dishwasher loaded? Check.

Laundry started? Check.

Beanstalk growing out of Logan’s bathroom sink? Check.

Wait a minute. Really? Really? Yes, really. A beanstalk was growing out of my 9 year old’s bathroom sink.

Unfortunately, the beanstalk didn’t lead to a magic castle in the sky, where all that stood in the way of lifelong golden riches was a quick battle with Andre the Giant and the ‘napping of his pet goose. I would have been up for that, sure. That would have been really cool! Can you imagine? Who could ever argue again that there’s no excitement in a stay at home mom’s life?

Actually, however, the beanstalk was pretty small and lame but it was a beanstalk nonetheless and it was growing in my son’s sink.

So I simply plucked the beanstalk from the drain, pulled out the drain stopper, gave it a good rinse, replaced the stopper back in the sink and made a mental note to have a conversation with Logan later about the moral of this almost fairy tale.

And that moral would be Don’t dump your hamster food down the bathroom sink, as simple science dictates that seeds+water+a little bit of dirt=vegetation.

Unless, of course, they are magic seeds! Then, my boy, you’d have my blessing to plant away.