Kitchen Chaos

I am told chaos results when the world changes faster than the people in it and, whilst the uneasiness caused by global chaos is reputed to allow the opportunity for creativity and growth, chaos in my kitchen seems to be causing nothing but confusion and angst.

It is mid morning and my grandson and daughter are attempting to make a crumble with fruit they have picked from the garden while calling on my expertise, constantly, to help them.

My youngest son, furious to find someone has been using his Uno cards again, communicates his indignation by way of a walky talky at full volume that picks up passing police transmissions at the same time.

My husband who was, until summoned by our eldest son, mid point of yet another Internet based job application, stands silent and hovering in the doorway in readiness to fulfill a “no notice” request for a lift to the cinema.

The same sixteen year old son is attempting to procure the Orange Wednesday code from my phone whilst telling me to chill at my handbag invasion and show more respect when conversing with him.

I, on the other hand, while doing my best to both relay cooking instructions and referee the Uno card dispute,  am endeavouring to communicate to my sixteen year old son the benefits of  being less demanding of instantaneous social gratification and more responsive to the numerous tasks of educational importance that he has seen fit to neglect.

Getting nowhere with anything, but still with all eyes on me I decide to,

·        ask my daughter and grandson to take a break from prepping the crumble and play Uno,

·        ask my youngest son to switch the walky talky off and join in with the  Uno game,

·        tell my eldest son it is too short notice to go to the cinema and suggest he crack on with his list of more pressing issues.

This leaves my husband free to return to his CV and me exhausted, but with some semblance of order and an empty kitchen.

“Miracle Mum,”, some might say?

“Dictator and control freak,” they cry,  while during all this, my husband stands silently by.

Try, try and try again

Abraham Lincoln said, "Whatever you are, make sure you are a good one" and in an effort to step up to the wearing of my somewhat dusty housewifely hat, I made a light lunch for my husband and I to enjoy without our children. During the course of this interlude of domestic bliss my husband looked up from his lunch and, observing my watering eyes, enquired if I had had an allergic reaction to something.

I explained that I had been choking.

However, despite sitting inches away from me across our table, he had been so lost in thought he completey missed my distress and there was a look of incredulous surprise across his face as it dawned on him he had, despite his proximaty, no recollection of what had happened to me.
Basking in the security of the past weeks "warmer glow", I decided, with some misgivings, to use the opportunity to tell him this "moment of absence" was not an isolated incident.

I was totally unprepared for what followed.

Whereas I saw my kindly and carefully voiced disclosure as a way of opening a dialogue from which we might find our way back, my husband saw it as an accusation which required defending.  No amount of explaining  the frequency of these "absent episodes" was not a judgement but merely an observation, would deter him from his argument.  Despite the fact he had acquired, for himself, proof they were a reality, he could not accept his opinion on their frequency was simply invalid.  I thought our objective should be not to query their existence, but to lovingly discuss how best for us both to live with them.

Overwhelmingly tired of the life I could see stetching ahead for me yet desperate to ensure my children do not grow up without a father, I visualised the coming years with a husband constantly in denial of all circumstances and all attributes which displeased him. I was destined be struggling silently to provide family stabilty at the cost of any personal expectations of happiness and retired to bed early with a very heavy heart.

Waking early, I crept out of bed to make a start on my plans for a future without him, only to notice his clothes on the floor discarded from the night before.  They lay carefully and childishly folded in a pile which was too small for their volume and I knew this unsolicited task had been undertaken in an effort to seek my approval.  With my resolve still intact, I made my way to the bedroom door imagining it to be the portal between me and the rest of my life.  My husband stirred with the noise of  my opening the latch the and it was then I heard his muffled words,

"Come back to bed so I can make you a cup of tea".

"Alright then", was my well practised reply,"if you are sure you don't mind"

Whatever I am, be it lover of my family, lover of my husband or just a lover of tea,  I have always endeavoured, like Abraham Lincoln suggests "to be a good one".  I have tried to do the right thing and in this instance I am sure of one thing and one thing only, I am definitely good at trying again and again and again.