I’m in the kitchen, cooking for an impending camping trip. Owen (7) is helping tidy up the kitchen. Max (3) is growling and chewing a giant chunk of an everything bagel. I look up from my work to see Flynn (12) rubbing his twin sisters’ feet in the living room. A few moments later I see they have switched and Iris is now massaging his feet. A civilized foot massage exchange. Micah (10) has mentioned to me twice in the last 24 hours that he believes that he has poison ivy. He showed me a red area on his ankle. I made the connection, “He has poison ivy…again…” But then something more pressing than the beginning of our summer-long battle to keep this old familiar rash at bay came up, and I was immediately distracted.

I only remembered his freshly brewing poison ivy later that day when I heard him shout from upstairs,

“So Flynn, do I wash it all off now?”

I then listened as Flynn directed Micah in how to use one of the many poison ivy washes that we offer here at The Krouse Family Poison Ivy Survivors Clinic. No joke. We get it in all the places you “hear about someone getting it..” The eyes, inside the nose, in the ears… and other places. I have some pretty gnarly photos of Flynn and Micah from 2 years ago…and I purposely lost Chris’ “Quasimodo picture,” from the episode when one entire side of his face swelled up to 3 times its size resulting in an oozing slit for an eye. Special times. You wanna know what a batch of poison like that does to a marriage? Abstinence. That’s all. Firm, unspoken, automatically assumed abstinence.

As Flynn bestowed his well-earned poison ivy first aid expertise on his younger brother, it was one of those “failed as a mother while succeeding as a parent” kinda moments. I knew that a less distracted, more caring mother probably would have taken the time to assess, diagnose and treat the child’s condition more adequately. But the parent in me has somehow helped to shape people that are smart enough to care for themselves and still other people who are willing to assist those in need.

Still later that evening, Noah (1) on my hip…my time in the kitchen has not yet ended. Micah hollers from upstairs,

“MOM! Max is bleeding!!” I march to the bottom of the steps, all senses heightened.

“What? Why isn’t he crying?”, I’m more worried than my tone implies.

“I don’t know!” Micah also sounds worried.

“Can I see him…can he come here?”

Micah disappears from the top of the steps,

“Max, come here…mom wants you to go to her…”

I am waiting to look up and behold the bloody toddler.

“Oh wait.” Micah reappears at the top of the staircase, a goofy look of complete relief has washed over his face.

“Sorry, mom. It’s just sauce or something.”

Of course, it’s just sauce. That changes everything. You know what it doesn’t change though? The very real stress that I still had to live through in the 60 seconds it took to discover that it was “just sauce.”

I felt some level of satisfaction that Micah got to live through it with me. He just experienced what most every parenting moment feels like all the time. Most days for me feel like a series of events that possibly include blood but end up only being a smear of some kind of sauce. Moments of screwing up so bad as a parent that I’m sure that no one involved is going to be ok… and then I get to see a glimpse of their sweet hearts, and I’m just glad to be a part of it.

Lately, I’ve realized that I will never be afforded the luxury of feeling like I have it all together or that I’m doing a great job all the time. Most of the children are usually lightly dirty because I couldn’t find 1 of my 10 packages of wet wipes when I left the house, and if you want to know if that’s me and my kids eating a Mexican casserole on a blanket at a little league baseball game with a bunny and a guinea pig, Yes. And it probably isn’t going to end well. But we can all sleep easy knowing it’s just sauce and not blood.

Chris is at class. Maxwell is crying. The kids are in the yard. The neighbor twins are out and there is unbridled volume coming from their general direction. Owen falls from the wood pile as I instruct children to clean up shards of broken plastic…in an effort to keep the yard some what safe. (Ironic?) I go to him, assess the damage. Scraped knees. I help him out of the wood pile and we walk toward the house to clean and kiss boo-boos. While holding Max in the sling and wetting a paper towel for Owen’s scrapes I hear the unmistakable “pain cry” from Micah, just outside the back porch. I immediately leave the recently wounded yet stable child to assess new injuries to a second child. Micah’s eyes are overflowing as he tries to tell me that he hit his head on the side walk. Sensing my confusion, he tearfully continues to reenact the running…the golf club straight out in front of him…the edge of the sidewalk that catches the golf club…the catapulting action that flipped him over the golf club, landing him on his head on the sidewalk. He is seated on the back porch now, applying Ice to his head while I make sure his pupils are dilating. Owen approaches, clearly jaded at how easily distracted I have become. I return to the former task of caring for his scuffed knees. Meanwhile the kitchen counters and table are covered with the days grocery booty…waiting for someone (whoever you are) to put it all where it belongs. Per the consistent request of the children, I had also previously started making a batch of powerballs or as the kids call it “bird food” (an oat, seed, peanut butter, honey, chocolate chip, ball shaped snack). Within minutes all the children have congregated around the bowl to help add ingredients. Micah sitting to my right, still applying ice to his head. Owen sitting on top of the table among some grocery bags and a banana peel. Iris holding a measuring cup, waiting for instruction. Flynn, casually distancing himself at the end of the table. A day of touring the county’s finest discount grocery stores for camping snacks for the upcoming weekend has left him exhausted and uninterested in sous chef duties. Sensing an opportunity to put all our energy in an organized and positive direction, I give orders from the handicapped paradise that is swaying back and forth with an arm load of 3 week old baby love. As we read the recipe, I alert the kids that we are doubling the quantity and ask them to tell me how much of each ingredient we will need accordingly. We are half way thru the recipe. Everyone taking turns. Scooping. Pouring. Measuring. I ask, “Micah, can you tell me how much honey the recipe says to use?” Micah is propping/icing his head with one hand, he is staring down at the recipe. Unenthusiastically he responds, “I can’t read it. It’s in Chinese.” It is actually hand written in my slanted print. With such ease he has quenched our worn spirits with a moment of much needed laughter. I am once again reminded that for every ten horrific parenting moments in a day, thankfully there is usually one that takes your breath away…or allows you to start breathing again. (Cause maybe you’re like me and you’ve been holding your breath in anticipation for the next “running with golf club” incident) And those moments help dissolve the prickly, threatening words exchanged in a grocery store bathroom while you tried to scare your kids into behaving. They disintegrate the inadequacy you feel when you’ve lost track of how long your 4 year old has been playing gameboy. These moments span the chasm that is full of all your failures and overwhelmed, ill advised parenting catastrophes. It is in these precious, candid, spiritual snippets of life that we need to remain. Lingering in the reality that we DONT want to escape, believing that these are what are flavoring this cooking experiment and the rest is just to keep us appreciative and grasping at the flavorful entree that awaits. Like when healthy food tastes good and the kids are surprised. Yeah, there are lentils and kale and whole wheat pasta involved, but they aren’t making up the savory undertones of the stew. Understanding that when things taste bad, it’s only because they are waiting to get good. Really, REALLY, good. But maybe one ingredient is missing, like timing or a right attitude or a soft heart. And being brave enough to taste it all, even while the recipe is still in its infancy and there are lessons to be learned about what flavors to never combine and what ones work well together. And also keeping the sobering understanding that at any moment a child helper could over salt the whole pot or add an eggs worth of shells and you’re still going to pretend it’s delicious…cause it’s what’s for dinner.  It’s reality.