by Tracy S.

I am not a religious person.  And I didn’t think I was that spiritual either. 

I’m just a mom – insert horrific stare here– trying to keep my head above water and balance my kids, marriage, and empty checkbook.  Today was a particularly trying day.  I realized that, for the first time, we may not be able to pay our mortgage on time.  This terrified me.  And, me being the mother of the year that I am, tried everything in my power to keep my dread, my fear, and my anxieties away from my kids.  Keyword being tried.

While attempting to whip up a Betty Crocker worthy dinner, I allowed my sons, Preston and Carter, aged 2 and 3 and a half, to play with play doh and watch Tom & Jerry in the living room.  Usually this is a highly supervised activity and it did start out to be.  Carter was watching Tom & Jerry quietly, besides the giggles, and I had made Preston a little brown ball that he was rolling around on the mat we lay out when we use the play doh.  The rule is simple.  Keep the playdoh on the mat…NOWHERE ELSE.  Yeah, I see you smirking, you THINK you know where this is heading.   Well you’re right.  Somewhat.

So I left the boys, and went into the kitchen.  Not five minutes later, I hear the boys dragging a box of cars into the living room to play with.  Typically this wouldn’t bother me, as the parade of playroom toys making their way to the living room and back are a daily ritual that I look forward to like a root canal.  But it was then that I realized the play doh was still out and when we are DONE with play doh it is put away until the dreaded next time it is dragged out (I still have embedded chunks in our rug that is beneath the mat I mentioned. Go figure).

Here is where I forget to mention that they are wrestling with the box and, well, being kids, so I tell them in my Suzy Homemaker tone “We are going to put the play doh away before playing with the cars.”  I then discover, as we are putting away the jars, the brown jar is half full.  I ask nicely “Preston, where is the brown ball of play doh?” He answers me in true two year old fashion by handing me a blue monster truck.  I am now paranoid and my eyes are scanning the room feverishly, looking for the brown ball of play doh.  I announce “We are not watching Tom & Jerry until the brown ball of play doh is found!!” And I pause the TV.

And I look.  And I look.  And I do not see it. 

What I see is red. 

And you are probably reading this saying, “This woman is about to go postal over a brown ball of play doh…seriously??”  However, today is not a typical day.  Today is the day that all my fears and stresses seem to be becoming reality and internally I am falling apart because, well, let’s face it, you want to be able to provide for your kids and it seems like we are having a hard time doing just that.

So I am on a rampage now.  Freaking out…screaming, “Where is the brown ball of play doh?!?” Like a blubbering mental patient.  The kids are half ass looking and I am thinking “Great.  Now I have to explain this to my husband when he gets home, right after I drop the “we are broke” bomb.  Good times. 

So I sit. 

On my kitchen floor.

Knees drawn to my chest. 

Crying.

And I do what I always do when faced with these breakdown situations.  I ask for help.  Not from God. But from my dad.  Even after he passed, he is the one I look to for help in times like these. 

And the house is dead silent because the TV is paused. And I hear Preston in the living room doing anything but looking for the brown ball of play doh.  I put my head down and cry more, thankful my kids are too busy to notice. 

When I look up, my Carter has quietly walked into the kitchen and he looks at my bloodshot mother of the year eyes and he drops the brown ball of play doh in the palm of my hand. “It was on the chugga chugga choo choo train table” – a place I looked several times.

We embrace.

Like mother and son.

Like father and daughter.

Thanks dad.

Tracy S. is a stay at home, wife and mother to two boys, Carter and Preston.  She lives in New Jersey and enjoys writing, reading, tweeting, and cooking.  She has her own blog she barely touches.  She is a Special Education teacher looking to enter back into the workforce…just as soon as someone lets her back in.