Paper Plates.

Last spring, as summer stared at us wide in the face, bright and alert, screaming energy and lurking for attention, so did my newborn son.  Only a few weeks old and he would stay awake twelve hours a the day, no sleep to ensure, and his toddler sister never stopped -- not her full-blown personality or her eyelids.

A friend was over and I started for the cupboard and laughed, half apologizing, half throwing my hands in my air at this blessed predicament and said:  "We're in a season of paper plates. Sorry, that's all I got around here.  No time to unload the dishes, no time to eat real dinners, so I'm dishing up whatever I've got and throwing it on paper plates and calling it good.  There, I fed my family, and now I throw the plate away.  I've got to minimize anything around here that I can."

She laughed, smirking and shrugging, "Us too!  I told my husband last night that I'm doing paper plates through the summer.  Just taking them out, eating on the porch, and throwing them away.  Besides, it has to be somewhat cost efficient right -- not running the dishwasher all the time?!"  We laughed loud and shook our heads.

Commradery in season.

Life didn't slow down, and neither did our serving of paper plates.  We bought them in stacks and shared them relentlessly.  Our door kept opening and people kept eating, so paper plates did the job.  The minimalist; necessary.  Burgers fresh on the grill or simple salad, store-bought cookies or English Muffin breakfasts, paper plates it was.  Serve them, dine them, trash them.  Breakfast: done.  Lunch: done.  Dinner: done.  Snacks: done. Hospitality: done.

I don't know when I stopped using them, but somewhere near the rounding of fall, I must have thought dishwasher-requiring porcelain plates were back in style in my house.  Perhaps with comfort food or hot dishes, real plates seemed necessary.  But for months now, I've taken those antiqued white pretties out for every. single. meal.

Today the same friend left my house and I looked back around at the catastrophe of my house.  Puzzles askew, grapes spilled over, half-drunk coffees and waters left about.  Tonka trucks and drums and duplos and tambourines all littered the floor.  The kitchen still dolupped with breakfast dishes piled high; the dishwasher needing unloading. Chaos abound.

I rolled my eyes and smirked.  Predicament.  What a mess.

Yet:  What fun.  What friendship.  What time in the trenches with our littles.  What crazy dinners with our family "around" our table.  What tea parties on the kitchen floor.  What food cut and sliced and slopped and forked.  What people loved and hugged and hosted and homed in this home...

It's important to me to have a home that is... a home.  Where kids can run wild, where their hearts are free.  Where the indoors of life is trampolines, firetrucks, tutus and kazoos.  Where bellies are fed, and meals are eaten united.  Where people are welcomed and hosting happens.

Yet this life abundant -- in noise and toys and people and parties -- sometimes needs a little breath, a little filter, a little simplifier...

So, once again, in this spring-time season, I'll still be serving... with paper plates.

Start With Oatmeal.

It all began with oatmeal.  It was seven am and the kids were both up and stooled in the kitchen, Judah propped high in the green stool and Camilla contained on the purple and pink one.  And I turned around with watered oatmeal in my hand to nuke it warm and soft.  The coffee was brewing, the sun still not revealed, but the kids and I were roused awake with morning under full force.

Then wack! went the porcelain bowl, edge colliding with the corner of the wall-mounted microwave, white dish clapping against the ground with the bursting volcano of oatmeal spraying out of it all directions.

I stood blinking a minute, stunned in my now wet, dripping robe, surveying the damage: loose oatmeal and water splattered at every angle of cupboard and counter, the pantry door, the refrigerator, dishwasher, the whole of the kitchen.  Up and down, like a tsunami of steel oats and sticky water speckled and sloshed.

I could tell from Camilla's face, how I reacted mattered.  Because -- oh no, it was mommy this time who made the mess.  I got down with the thick roll of Bounty paper towel and started to mop up the deepest pools, rolling the remarks about "don't cry over spilled milk" over and over in my head.

Yet two hungry kids needed to be fed.  So before finishing, I swooped them up and settled - buckled - them into their high chairs.  Seated now.  Contained.  I pulled eggs out of the already-open microwave and sprinkled them into pieces on Judah's tray, then rearranged new oatmeal before Camilla.

Gathering a red bucket of vinegar water, I squeezed the rag between my fingers, removed my robe, and started crawling around the kitchen floor on my hands and knees, smelling of vinegar and brown sugar oatmeal and ham and eggs. Bare knees rubbing on wood, my hands scrubbed the soppy mess sliding down every corner.

Then, a thud! Clunk.

I peered around the island corner, bracing myself for whatever fell or broke...

But worse:  There was Judah, holding the edge of the tablecloth;  somehow The Little Destroyer pulled the whole thing over his way, with the entire contents of the table with it.  All. Over. The Floor.

Eggs.  Ham. Oatmeal. Flowers. Cards. Cheese. Valentines.  Everything.  A mornings worth of debris sprinkled about.  Add it to the rug stains.

I stood up in my mix-matched pajamas, knotted ponytail floppy atop my head.

To laugh or cry?  Blink or look?  Cringe or sigh?

I decided to scrap the rest of breakfast altogether.  Unbuckled the kids, grabbed a few of the biggest chunks off the floor, and turned to grab my phone to share with family what could only make their morning slightly comical at this point.

In the couple seconds of getting started a talk-text phone chat, I hear: "Mom!  Judah's going upstairs!"

The kid is so fast.  And I am not an absent parent.  I round the corner and my 10 month old son is atop the stairs, super proud and determined.  Destined.  And I know exactly where.

He loves the toilet.  Like a dog.  He could play it it and lick from it all day if I'd let him.

[I don't.]

So I take a second to tuck my phone away and dart upstairs.

He's already grabbed the toilet seat with wet fingers.  Yuck.   Nothing good can be growing in there.

But this little guy has a grab on that toilet seat like he's going for gold.  I loop one arm around his waste and lug him to my hip while my second hand goes to get his gnarled, clinging fingers off the nasty seat.

Breaking him free, I swing him around, swirl him on my hip toward the door, while, simultaneously, Camilla steps in the bathroom, thus slamming heads, colliding and bonking each other lending to streaming tears and screams in unison.

Someone start the day over.

And it's only 8 AM.

Happy Valentines, 2017.