“I used a banana”

Having two incredibly smart little boys comes with its challenges. Yesterday was already challenging enough. I went on a 6.5-mile run and came home to both boys whining and complaining.

Their dad was supposed to take them to have breakfast with his mom for her birthday, but she wasn’t ready yet. And when you tell my youngest you’re going somewhere, you have about 45 seconds to have him out the door before he has a meltdown.

We finally made it through the day. I was in the home stretch, just needed to get through bath times, story time, bedtime, and my own shower. I started giving my little guy a bath. My husband was working on his computer in the bedroom, and my oldest was on the couch on his tablet…or so I thought.

Once that bath was done, I came out and noticed an old picture of myself hanging on the wall. My oldest has become very interested in some of my mom’s old photo albums. Recently, he found a picture of me from high school or early college. A selfie. Printed on printer paper that my mom kept for some reason. He decided he wanted to keep it for whenever he missed me. Fine. I thought, who cares what happens to this one?

I asked him how he managed to hang it on the wall. “Banana,” he replied. “I’m sorry, what?” he looked at me like I was the crazy one. “I said Banana. I rubbed some banana on it.” Ah, of course, why wouldn’t there be a banana on the wall? Silly me.

Then came my youngest -the ultimate chaos goblin. He took the picture off the wall, which of course pissed off my 5-year-old. He immediately found his banana and began reapplying to the picture and putting it up higher. My youngest, deciding he was suddenly the voice of reason, shouted, “Mommy!! Luca banananana (yes, that many extra syllables)! What you doing, Luca??” Really, he was probably just mad he didn’t think of this first.

Finally, with pictures securely adhered, baths had, my own shower taken, we were ready for bedtime. I was reading stories. Both boys in their beds…kind of. My youngest, Finley, tends to have a million tasks to complete once I start reading. Closing the door. Opening the door when the cat wants in. Turning on the sound machine. Finding a stuffed animal that has been rendered meaningless until that moment. I continue to read. Luca was drifting off to sleep and coughed. Which, to Finley, meant fake coughing…over and over again. Then fake sneezing. I’m trying to quiet him down for Luca’s sake, and he continues. The more I “shush,” the more he does it. I try ignoring him. He is finally quiet. Then he screams, “Mommy!! a MONSTER!” I look. It’s a laundry basket. I once again try to quiet him and say, “Baby it’s the laundry basket.” He was not satisfied with this response. “No. Look at it!!” I respond again, “It’s still a laundry basket.” He decides to settle. I continue to lay in his bed because I do not trust him to not wake up Luca, who is now fast asleep. Then my least favorite question comes out of his mouth, “Where’d pon go?” (they are bilingual, chupon is a pacifier in Spanish). He had two of them when we lay down. Now he had one. I said, “Umm, I don’t know.” He replied, “High in the sky. Look!” I look toward the ceiling, and he throws the last remaining pon into the air, and it lands somewhere in the dark bedroom. Cool. Luckily, my pon seek-and-rescue skills are top-notch at this point, and I found one.

Eventually, somehow, silence.

The fake coughing stopped. The fake sneezing stopped. The search for the “pon” ended only after one pacifier disappeared “high on the sky” and the other disappeared somewhere in the dark bedroom. The monster was revealed to be a laundry basket, though I remain unconvinced that Finley accepted my diagnosis. Luca’s portrait, lovingly reattached to the wall with banana, will almost certainly attract ants before it earns a place in any museum.

I tiptoed out of the room and collapsed onto the couch, wondering if I’d spent enough time with them today or too much. If there had been too much screen time or not enough. If I should have played more or hidden better.

Then I remembered that less than 24 hours ago, after I went to a comedy show for all of two hours, Luca looked at me with complete sincerity and begged me not to leave for my run because I’d “been gone for weeks.”

That’s motherhood in one sentence. You spend every waking minute being climbed on, talked to, and asked to identify imaginary monsters, yet the second you leave the room, you’ve apparently vanished into history.

Tomorrow I’ll probably find a pacifier in a houseplant and a dried banana smear on the wall. Finley will insist the laundry basket is still suspicious. Luca will undoubtedly invent another use for fruit.

And I’ll probably write it all down, because if I don’t laugh, I’ll cry—and honestly, this material is too good to waste.