More Conversations With Grasshopper (You Can't Make This Stuff Up)

My child is getting too big for his britches.

And I don't mean in the "I might start making him walk around with a brick on his head if he doesn't stop this infernal GROWING" way. I mean in the "He may not make it to his fourth birthday if he keeps up with that smart mouth" way.

A week or so ago, Grasshopper and I were both sick. We'd had the same cold for about 10 days and mine was segueing nicely into a sinus infection while his infection chose to take up residence in his ears. I had a contractor on my roof and a tissue semi-permanently attached to my nose. I needed to take us to the doctor.

So I got us appointments on the same morning at my primary care doc's office and his pediatrician's office which is right around the corner(can you say miraculous, boys and girls?).

I left the contractor on the roof and hauled us out to spend money on co-pays that were frustratingly unnecessary since I had already (correctly) diagnosed us and we just needed some damn antibiotics, PLEASE! But no, we needed to be exposed to MORE germs in over-crowded waiting rooms to have a nurse practitioner spend no more than 45 seconds examining each of us and then prescribing antibiotics. Woo health care industry!

The visits took a couple of hours and by the time we got home it was lunch time and Grasshopper wanted pizza. I threw a frozen pie in the pre-heated oven, set the timer, turned on a DVD for Grasshopper and tried to focus on what my contractor was telling me about my roof and the cheap a-holes who owned it before me while my sinuses pounded out a distracting rhythm.

The timer beeped and I opened the oven door to a very odd-looking pizza: melted cheese but absolutely no "rise" or browning to the "rising-crust." In fact, the edges were flopping down in between the bars of the rack (I bake our pizzas directly on the rack to get crispier crust). It didn't take too long for me to determine that the bottom heating element on my oven was not actually heating.

My hands were getting shaky from lack of food, and I was waiting until we had something in our stomachs before giving us our first doses of antibiotic. Plus the contractor needed to go to Home Depot (which always takes 2 hours even though it's 3 miles away) because WHY should a job that he told me would take "a couple of hours" actually only take that long?

So I loaded a protesting Grasshopper in the car and headed for the nearest drive-thru, thinking that this would make his day AND get food in our tummies fastest. Mommy win!

Or not.

"But I want pizza Mommy! Why us going to McDonald's?"

"Because the oven is broken sweetheart. I tried to make us a pizza, but the oven isn't working right now."

Grasshopper kicks the back of the passenger seat huffily and catches my eye in the rearview.

"Um, I think that the oven at Mellow Mushroom is not broken." He informs me with oh so much contempt for my problem-solving skills.

Serenity now, serenity now, serenity now, seren...