The apple juice incident

Apple juice is my life blood. Juice, cider, or three-apple blend--mmmmm. Fresh, bottled, or concentrate--I love it all. It's literally the only food that I liked from the beginning to the end of my sickly Amber-pregnancy. Even more surprising than that is the fact that I still love it now. When I was sick last week, I sipped apple juice and again it sustained me.

Yesterday Jeff stayed home sick from church. Since we'd be gone for less than four hours, I asked him nicely if he would keep Amber home with him so I could actually BE at church. I made sure to tell him that if he thought he was too sick to take care of Amber, I would take her with me and the big kids. But Jeff agreed to watch Amber, and since I had just experienced the same sickness, I knew he wasn't too ill to care for her while we were gone. So the rest of us went to church and got home 3.75 hours later. When I walked in the door after church, one of the first things I noticed through Amber's cheery repeated "hi, Mommy!" greeting was a juicy smell drifting around the house. An apple juicy smell. I walked upstairs and the smell grew stronger. I hugged Amber and the smell grew stronger still. Jeff hailed me from the recliner with "I have a story for you."

"Does it have to do with apple juice?" I asked quickly. 

"While I was taking a nap in the basement," Jeff began, "Amber came walking down holding a full cup of apple juice saying 'help, Daddy, help, Daddy!' When I went upstairs, I discovered that she had dumped most of the bottle of apple juice all over the kitchen floor while trying to pour herself a cup to drink. I mopped it up as best I could," Jeff finished weakly from his chair. 

PAUSE the story right here for a brief background check:

I had been sick for the previous three days, and was still exhausted from the ordeal. The first day I woke up feeling relatively healthy, my period started. TMI, I know, but it was a FACTOR. I had not consumed even half of my daily calorie needs in well over 48 hours. Post sickness exhaustion + gnawing hunger + menstrual discomforts and hormonal-ness = an emotional Mount Everest for me to climb. There were going to be casualties. 

PLAY the apple juice story again:

"I mopped it up as best I could," Jeff finished weakly from his chair. My irritation had flared at the first line of Jeff's story, when he said "while I was taking a nap in the basement." Taking a nap while a 2 year old is loose in the house is like falling asleep at the wheel. In this case, it was more like falling asleep at the helm of a ship! He woke up drowning in apple juice. When Jeff ended his tale of woe, my eyes darted over to the kitchen floor. It was shiny with dried apple juice--a lake of sticky tiles. I moaned and without thinking said "Ughhh, the kitchen floor looks awful! Ahhh! I should've just brought Amber to church with me." Having expelled some venomous wrath verbally, I underscored my irritation by stomping off to my bedroom to change out of my church clothes. I'm pretty sure at some point in my life, people have referred to me as sweet and kind. Insert wicked bitter cackle. Not this time! My red hair flamed behind me.

While I was in my room, I fueled my indignation with thoughts like these: "Toddler care 101: DON'T take a NAP and leave the 2 year old unattended! What was he thinking?" and "I had to take care of Amber while I was sick for TWO whole days while Jeff was at work! The least he could do was watch her while I went to church! Or actually clean UP the mess all the way! But instead, I come home to an enormous mess! ARG!" and the question of the universe, "Why are men so impossible when they're sick?"

My bucket of anger full to the brim, I decided not to change my clothes after all and stomped back down the hall to the kitchen. Jeff, with his jaw set, was holding the mop for a second attempt on the sticky floor. I was boiling inside, but the fragment of my brain that was not on fire told me that I should mop, not sick Jeff. Those angry flames were still dancing at the edge of my vision though, so instead of calmly sending Jeff back to his sickbed, I growled "I'll do it" and tried to grab the mop from Jeff's hands. But he would not let go of the mop. He actually would not give it to me. That ever-shrinking calm sliver of my brain warned me to get out of there before I exploded again. So I stomped back to my room and locked the door, seething. 

In my room this time, amidst my fuming, I also remembered the blazing look on Jeff's face when I tried to take the mop. Then the force of my own words started to hit me. I replayed what I had said back in my mind and horror at my own insensitivity effectively doused out the flames of anger, leaving me feeling flat, pathetic, and hollow. "What was I thinking??" I moaned to myself. "Poor Jeff! That was such a RUDE ungrateful thing for me to say! Yes, he dropped the ball leaving Amber alone, and yes, I am better at taking care of a toddler while I'm sick, but still. I was mean. He's sick. I think he's actually really mad right now! What was I THINKING?" I stayed in my room wringing my hands and wondering at my burst of senseless anger until I heard Jeff leave the kitchen. Then I crept back out and ate my lunch. Jeff had retreated to the basement. 

When I was finished with lunch, I gathered my shredded patience, swallowed my pride, and went down to face Jeff. I apologized for my rude words, but I could tell he was still stinging, so I left again and came back a little while later to talk it out. I explained all of the physical and emotional blockades I was facing that led up to my outburst--not to excuse my behavior, but to help him see that it wasn't your average everyday Shaina dealing with the issue. Jeff said it took everything in him not to return fire in the moment, but when the moment passed, he got over it quickly. I marveled at his ability to bite his tongue and sort of moaned at my own failure to do the same. Jeff very graciously accepted my apology. I vowed to work on taming my tendency to excoriate in the future. 

FAST FORWARD: the next day [Monday]

I mopped the kitchen floor today, and I must have grown at least a little as a human being and as a wife after yesterday, because I did not even have one uncharitable thought while I mopped. I do not mop regularly, and when I do, uncharitable thoughts flow freely. For this reason, among others, mopping is not even on my monthly chore radar. It's more of a spring cleaning once-a-year type of chore in my kitchen right now. That probably reveals a little too much about my brand of housekeeping, but how else could I manage to write long blog posts AND do all the laundry? Something has to give, and it's mopping. And other little things like recipe instructions to "beat in eggs, one at a time." Not happening! In they all go together! Don't worry, I do vacuum more than once a year. Much more, in fact, though rather irregularly.

Anyways, Jeff's second sickly floor mop still left patches of sticky juice on the floor, so I got a bucket of sudsy water and really mopped today. After each row of tiles was mopped, I scrubbed it with a wet rag for good measure because sticky stains are stubborn and I was NOT going to do the dread mopping chore twice in one week. It worked. All the sticky is gone. And my rage is gone with it.

Insert the psst sound of a candle flame being pinched by wet fingers. Or the hissing, spitting sound of a bucket of water being dumped onto a campfire. 

I hope this post wasn't too _____. Personal? Graphic? Awkward? Trivial? I always wonder that when I write blog posts. Is this too _____ to post online? I know I've never read anything quite like it online. Does that make it taboo? The story written here was a journey I had recently, and it felt worth sharing. Jeff and I don't normally actually get mad at each other, so this experience made me think. Patience, charity, and forgiveness make marriage work. Thank goodness my husband has enough reserves to cover my failings! I love him for it.

 The Amber-monkey can reach almost anything she sees these days.

One more story for the road:

When Jeff and I were backpacking around Europe 8.5 years ago, we uncovered a hotspot in our relationship: hunger. One evening in the wilds of Greece near the Albanian border, we found ourselves in a tiny town without restaurants. It was dinner time and we were tired and hungry. Darkness was falling, it was getting colder, and we were getting hungrier by the minute. Our increasingly desperate exploration finally led us to a small store with about two isles of food in it. Since our lodgings did not have a kitchen, our dinner options were slim pickings. Jeff was all for continuing our search for a restaurant with some meat, but I had low hopes of finding one before we perished from hunger, so I insisted on buying milk and cereal for dinner from the small store we were standing in. We were both being completely stubborn and communicating very badly--not loudly, just badly. Our minds were not meeting and we were not compromising. It was survival mode Jeff vs. survival mode Shaina, and it was going nowhere. I remember eventually stomping my foot in frustration and bursting into tears right there in the store, buying the milk and cereal anyways, and practically force-feeding it to Jeff. When we had consumed probably an entire box of cereal for dinner, we both looked at each other and said "wow." Then we laughed at our folly. We have taken care to avoid both being overtired and hungry at the same time ever since. We've done a great job, but the sickness factor dulled our wits and fogged our perception of the situation on Sunday, creating the perfect storm.  

The result was another exercise in communication. If you hangry, don't say nothin' at all. Especially if there are ANY other negative factors contributing to the situation, like sickness, hormones, blood, loud children, or lakes of apple juice.