I was chatting with my friend Kaela as I pulled up to the dry cleaner the other day because I finally figured out how to work the bluetooth in the car that we’ve had for four years. Also, yes, I have a friend named Kaela. And yes, it is super confusing when we sit together at church.
“Okay, I’ll talk to you later, I’m about to go into the dry cleaners with Scarlette and I have to juggle her and a bag full of clothes so, you know, THAT should be interesting.”
PROPHETIC WORDS, Y’ALL. I have a gift, apparently.
So I head into the dry cleaners for what I assume will be a fairly uneventful trip, albeit peppered with questions from Scarlette because she is three and spends an inordinate amount of time asking “BUT WHY?!”
Instead what happened was that I handed my husband’s clothes to the girl behind the counter and Scarlette shrieked “WHAT SHE DOIN WIF MY DADDY’S CWOTHES! SHE NOT CAN HAB HIS CWOTHES! YOU GIB DOES BACK WITE NOW!” and then lunged at the opening housing a rack of hanging garments.
I grabbed both her and the garment rack to keep it from falling over and apologized profusely while also attempting to talk to Scarlette about Manners and Keeping Our Feet Still and The People In Our Neighborhood.
I said a hurried goodbye to the girl, who was very kind about the whole thing but still mentioned helpfully “You know, we actually have a drive through around the side if you want to just not have to get her out of the car next time.”
And I was all “I WILL DEFINITELY DO THAT THANK YOU SO MUCH OH AND MEDIUM STARCH PLEASE GOODBYE FOREVER.”
Or until Saturday, when I need to pick up the dry cleaning. From my driver’s seat. In the drive through.
As I was buckling Scarlette into the car she got teary-eyed and asked “BUT WHY MOMMY? WHY YOU GIB DAT WADY AWLL OB DADDY’S CWOTHES?”
“Well, because she is going to help us wash daddy’s clothes, Scarlette. She has a special machine that we don’t have and she is going to let us use it to get his clothes extra clean.”
She thought about that for a minute, scrunching up her nose and reflecting, I assume, on her great love of helping me push all of the buttons on our washing machine (SERIOUSLY ALL OF THE BUTTONS) and then asked “Can I help her do daddy’s cwothes? Me, ShcarwutBonneWastname? Can I help da wady?”
“NO, I’m sorry honey but that is just a job for grown-ups to do” I answered as I pulled tight on her straps.
“Oh. Are YOU going to go help da wady den?” she asked
“No, I’m not going to help the lady” I told her.
Then she started to tear up again and with her little lip trembling she cried “DEN WHO GOING TO HELP DA WADY? DOES SHE NOT HAB ANY FWIENDS? I WILL BE HER FWIEND! I WILL BE FWIENDS WIF DA WADY, MOMMY!”
And this is the part where that thing happened to me that no one warned me about before I had a kid.
I started crying, y’all.
I started crying because she’s just so sweet. She’s wild and rambunctious and unpredictable and randomly tells strangers that I am her sistermommy and that I don’t wear underwear but she is also tenderhearted and kind and thoughtful. And every single day of her life since the day she was born, frail and broken and fiesty, I look at her with my mother-eyes and I see so much Hope.
At lunch with my mother we were discussing something work-related and she made an offhand comment that someone just didn’t have the money. “Oh, you don’t hab any money, Janie?” Scarlette piped up. Then she sat her muffin down and looked across the table at my mother and said “You can hab awll MY monies, Janie. You can come to my house where my money is in my house in my piggy bank and hab awll my money dat I gib you.”
Then my mom cried, so there is my fair warning about motherhood to you. One minute you are in the thick of it at the dry cleaner thinking to yourself “SELF WHY IS MY CHILD WEIRDLY ATTACHED TO MY HUSBAND’S CLOTHES AND HOW DID THIS MELTDOWN HAPPEN?” and the next you’re weeping at the steering wheel because your little girl wants to make sure the lady at the dry cleaner has friends while people in the Tae Kwon Do class next door shoot you funny looks through the glass.
Also, I totally forgot to pick up the dry cleaning.
