Mad mommy

My husband calls this portrait of me in blue marker by my 5-year-old son, “Mean Mommy.”
He delights in recalling this picture whenever I scold the little guy. Just to bug me.
“Mean Mommy’s at it again,” he’ll say. As if my son doesn’t deserve to have his mouth washed out with liquid Dawn (just a swipe on the gums, mind you) when he calls me, “UR@!&$%$#*”
Saturday’s kiddy terrorism sent mom to new heights of fury.
I had my organic cotton yarn skein set around the back of my rocking chair. I began to roll it into a ball. My cell phone rang, from the kitchen. Usually I am supremely careful of all my projects, each in a plastic zip-lock bag, then inside a shoulder bag at all times. If liquid, food, a child, snow or anything with a remote possibility of stain-ability is near, zip-locks are employed.
Go figure. The one time I innocuously answer a telephone call from my stepmother, certain my little man is occupied with his drumset, mid-conversation I sense an uncanny stillness from the living room.
I cut the call short.
Walk to the other room, to see my craft scissors strangely open on the couch. And my precious yarn cut through six times.
And, the ball I had begun is missing. I sense someone hiding in the other room (mom-dar).
Leading to my husband’s desk is a long string of red yarn, criss-crossing the desk legs like a spider web. I lunge for T and the ball. He scrambles out the front of the desk, with the yarn ball, tangling it around chairs, through the TV room, into the kitchen, lickety-split.
And, gasp! — into the bathroom, around the toilet base.
Well, if there is a silver lining it is that I am fanatical about cleaning the toilets in our house. With three “boys” at home, it’s not uncommon that one or another or ALL miss the toilet substantially.
God must have been smiling down at me that day. At the very least — laughing understandably, because I had just cleaned this one.
I retrieved my ball, SCREAMED at T, then rolled up the remainder of my yarn into six balls of varying size.
And cursed, most likely looking very much like Mean Mommy.