Smashing Pumpkin [Pasta Stirrers]

Tonight I smashed a pasta stirring utensil on the kitchen counter, breaking off the teeth so that they flew a dozen different directions and if one of them would have landed in the pumpkin pasta dish I was preparing especially for the harvest dinner celebration, that would have been the most teeth that actually sunk themselves into the creamy delight of a dish.

Not my proudest parenting moment, but there I was, stinking like the leaf blower after a hefty afternoon of clearing leaves and winterizing our country-air yard, and all I wanted to do was serve my kids our standard goofy Halloween meal.  You know, the one where you call things by different names and relish the immaturity and beauty of being a big kid.  Rushing around between school and homework and a crabby ass preschooler who decided she was too big for a nap, I turned away from the hot stove to find one kid staring wistfully in the pantry and the aforementioned preschooler clutching a pack of fruit gummies and laying in the middle of the floor.

“Can you not see me cooking dinner?  Did you not see me stand here and wrap these hotdogs in dough so that they look like mummies?  Did you not smell the buttery teeth cooking?”

Uhhhhh….

And while some kids are old enough to understand when mom’s gonna blow a gasket, my preschooler just laid there in a leotard and asked if I could help her open her snacks.

And….cue…a…flying…pasta… stirring…untensil.

They ate their meal, one that is supposed to be fun and goofy and I talk like Dracula no matter what anybody says, mostly quiet.  The silence was broken by the occasional request for plain noodles because Jack’s guts weren’t bland enough for their pallets.  At one point, someone spilled an entire glass of water over the table and I threw them a towel and ate another mummy dog, drenched in mustard.

Tonight, despite the evening, we’ll finish the night with a bowl of popcorn (because you know they’ll all be starving from their non-dinner) and pop in It’s The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.  At some point, I’ll surely look around at three children growing at the speed of light, snug in their pajamas and choke up because I know I will miss these days that are flying by faster than the teeth of a smashed pasta fork.

And when those days come, I’ll still make mummy dogs and Jack’s guts.  And I vill eat zee entire pot of gooey guts.