This morning

I walk into the kitchen, smashing Cheerios with every step I take. My breakfast is going to be leftover soup. Knoepfle Soup, with some of the very best chicken on this earth.

It feels cold in the house, I was bad and turned the furnace up. My excuse? If Mama is cold the babies must be cold too. I'll have to remember to turn it back down in a minute or two. The grass is white. October is half-over and this is only our second good frost. I'm looking forward to my hot soup.


{that isn't a horse, it's our horse-sized dog}

All of the bowls are dirty. Every last one. I didn't get the dishes done last night because I was looking at cameras on ebay. Twenty minutes turned into two hours. Ebay makes me nervous.

I put my soup in a mug. That should work. Wrong. Apparently soup heats differently in the microwave when it's in a mug. Another mess.

But all is not lost and I sit down with my half-mug of soup. The little Bean circles me like a shark, saying "Hot! Hot! Hot!". The hair clip that she begged for before she dumped Cheerios all over the floor is that close to freedom. I cringe because it looks painful hanging there by only a few hairs. But she's happy.

I'm suddenly perplexed at the orange things floating in my soup. They almost look like bits of carrot, but I didn't put carrots in this soup. Yes, they're definitely carrots. This is not my Knoepfle Soup. Oh, yay. This is the Potato Soup I made over two weeks ago. It doesn't look funky. It doesn't smell odd. I put it down and get a new mug. My fridge is big but it's not that big. Now where is my Knoepfle Soup?



The Bean is shrieking like a trapped weasel. It's a muffled, far-away sounding scream. And being her mother I know exactly what the deal is. She managed to wiggle her way underneath the fitted sheet on her Mommy and Daddy's bed. Again. You know, the fitted sheet that is underneath the other sheet, that is underneath a blanket and a comforter. And on top? Her brother is jumping on her.

I rescue her, kick them both out of the bedroom and sit down with my soup because I have got to write this all down. Because this is my life... on a calm morning. And I want to remember these ordinary mundane details too, not just the more dramatic ones I have recorded here.