Sunday Afternoon

As I was standing in the kitchen finishing the dishes just now, a thought came to mind. Perhaps it was that I was cleaning a paint scraper, getting ready to make a batch of fudge. Anyway for some reason my mind was taken on a trip back through time to a similar quiet summer Sunday afternoon about 26 years ago.

That day, I was less efficient than today. I decided to take a quick nap after lunch, do the dishes later.

[Maybe that was just my habit. I was reminded of dish-doing when I recently reviewed a 22-year-old journal: my daughter asked my visiting father why he was doing our dishes? "We never do them until we have stacks and stacks!" she explained...]

Something brought me out of my napping slumber. Perhaps "Sister Christian" stopped playing below our window, or an uncharacteristically cool breeze blew in that open window. Something. I realized that she was taking an afternoon bath.

"Where are the kids?" I wondered.

I must've heard something in the kitchen. Because I went in to investigate.

Oh my.

There they were. My three-and-a-half-year-old son and two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, in their diapers, sitting on top of the kitchen table. She with an almost empty, family-sized, Country Crock upside down on her head. A Country Crock that had been opened just before lunch.

Margarine covered the table top, the kids, the wall beside the table.

Did I mention the kids? Covered. In margarine.

Smiling at me.

It is TREMENDOUSLY difficult to be stern when all you want to do is laugh and take a picture.

No camera. [Seems oddly thematic...]

I called to her. She joined me in a rush.

We decided to put them in the tub.

Margarine floats.