“I don’t like this.”
I stared.
“You ate this last week.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
“I don’t remember.”
“I remember.
I cooked it.”
The child studied the plate as though I had presented evidence from another century.
“Well, I don’t like it today.”
I sat down.
My food was hot.
This felt promising.
I took one bite.
“I need water.”
I got water.
I sat down again.
A fork hit the floor.
I picked it up and replaced it.
I sat down again.
“Stop looking at me.”
“I’m not looking at you.”
“You just did.”
I closed my eyes.
When I opened them, my food was no longer hot.
And there it was again: the thing no one had really explained before I had children.
None of this was catastrophic.
That was what made it so exhausting.
There was no single disaster to solve.
There were fifty tiny problems.
Each one was harmless.
Each one lasted seconds or minutes.
But they stacked.
A missing shoe.
A lost charger.
A water bottle.
A bathroom trip.
A phone call.
A snack request.
A dropped fork.
A disagreement over eye contact.
By bedtime, I felt as if I had been solving puzzles all day, except none of the puzzles stayed solved.
I got everyone into pajamas.
One child could not find a favorite shirt for the next morning.
The other suddenly remembered an urgent story that had apparently happened several hours earlier but could only be told after bedtime.
I listened.
The story lasted much longer than expected.
Then came water.
Then another bathroom trip.
Then the request for one more hug.
Then the reminder about something needed tomorrow.
Eventually the house became quiet.
I walked into the living room.
The couch was covered with the remains of the day: one sock, a blanket, a toy, the backpack full of important things.
I sat down anyway.
For the first time since morning, nobody asked me for anything.
