We are “all in the family” this weekend. This is 9-year old Little Big Boss’s term for when both her teenage sisters — my stepdaughters — are home. Big Daddy (my beloved husband) and That Dude (our 7-year old son) round out our band of six. All in the family is a rare achievement these days: the older girls aren’t with us full time and their schedules are demanding between school and other commitments. So Little Big Boss and That Dude look forward eagerly to time with their sissies: 17-year old Drama Queen (who lays claim to not a single diva-ish tendency but does have a passion for the performing arts) and 15-year old Bill (so dubbed because when I asked her how I should refer to her in this series, that was her pick).
The goal this long weekend: to take advantage of the ridiculously mild February weather and use the backyard fire pit that Big Daddy has been working on since October and finally finished. Friday night’s a no go since Bill’s not getting home until around 10 p.m. Saturday seems promising but we end up not getting back from a family shopping expedition until after 6 p.m. and still need to cook dinner and eat dinner and clean up from dinner. Sunday it is. Sunday or nothing. We are going to do some serious family bonding around our brand-spanking new, custom fire pit.
I’ve got the elements of faux Thanksgiving dinner in the works by 4 p.m. — cylindrical cranberry jelly (a household fave for reasons I can’t begin to fathom) chilling in the fridge; mashed potatoes, gravy, and green beans at the ready; turkey tenderloins in the oven. Also baking away is the piece de resistance: the corn pudding that this whole meal has been built around, the corn pudding that makes DQ so happy she could cry.
I’ve got my s’mores fixings for later prepped: big bowl of jumbo marshmallows, pretty platter of carefully arranged chocolate — graham cracker skyscrapers in the middle separating the milk chocolate (for them) from dark chocolate (for me). (I’m not fancy, but I really, really like to pretend to be fancy once in awhile.) I’ve got things so under control that I have time to go outside and chatter with my sweet neighbors for a WHOLE HALF AN HOUR while I wait for dinner to be ready. I am super mom. I am crushing it.
I’m conversing away–with other grown-ups!–when there’s a DQ sighting. Odd, because the teenagers rarely leave the house voluntarily unless there is shopping or dining involved. “Bill is ill. She may need a pill.” OK, DQ did not say exactly this (Bill’s name is not even Bill after all), but how cool would our family be if we really did speak exclusively in Seuss to each other? (I am going to make this suggestion, although I fear I will be easily voted down.) I head in to find Bill curled up on the floor in front of the kids’ bathroom upstairs, looking very pitiful and quite green.
I ask (for some reason) if she has ever felt this way before. Only once, she recalls, her eyes filling with tears at the memory: “After I drank 8 free slushies at TGIFridays. The waiter just kept bringing them and I kept drinking them. And then I threw up, a lot.” I give her a hug — despite the high risk of being puked on — because I am sad for her and also because I do not want her to see that I am having difficulty not laughing.
I manage to get Bill downstairs and settled on a couch with a blanket, tunes, and a thrup. (A thrup is a “throw up bowl”. No would-be puker or would-be puker’s caretaker has time or energy to expend three syllables where one will do.) I return to tending my faux Thanksgiving preparations with the “assistance” of LBB, who is really just hovering in order to try to score a preview bite of corn pudding.
Sensing that Bill’s subpar status has disturbed my wa, LBB asks if I like being a mom. “Yes, I do,” I reply immediately and cheerfully, having learned from past experience that a more nuanced answer to this particular question (which LBB loves asking me when I am stressed) can only lead to despair for all concerned. Thinking I have neatly sidestepped this land mine, I ask her with a smile if she enjoys my being her mother. And she actually has to think about the answer –for a long time — before nodding uncertainly. Ouch. I ask TD instead, TD who is currently wearing headphones and is as one with his device. He gives me the prompt affirmation my bruised ego is craving, but then lifts his phones to seek clarification on what he just said yes to.
BD appears for fire pit consultations, hesitant to proceed with Bill in her present state. But I am determined. Fire pit action is happening even if we burn only 3 twigs and a piece of cardboard. He asks “shallow or deep” and I have no idea what he is talking about, having failed –supportive wife that I am — to inspect the fire pit even once during the construction phase. My request was just for a stone ring that we could drop the portable pit into; that way we’d still be able to move it to the front yard when we wanted to.
I leave ill Bill and an unprotected corn pudding to see what shenanigans BD has been up to back there and discover that he’s been tunneling to the earth’s core. Our fire pit is like “a 1-person hot tub” to borrow LBB’s description and has its own drainage system. We can have bonfires! We are in the big leagues! I asked my baby for the cottage of backyard fire pits and he built me a palace. I now understand why this project has taken 5 months to complete and take back all the mean things I have said in my head about it and about BD in connection with it.
We decide on shallow for tonight, delaying the big bonfire debut for a time when there is less risk of having to ditch the pit for the ER. Bill finally loses her cookies (in the thrup, fortunately) just as the rest of us are sitting down for dinner. BD looks like he may bolt when Bill asks what to do with the thrup, so I retrieve it from her and dispose of it. (Hey, BD, it’s called adulting!) LBB informs us as we dig in that some people start throwing up just from smelling another person’s throw up, exactly the kind of heartwarming conversation all families dream of having around the dinner table. The corn pudding suddenly looks less appetizing than usual.
I set the s’mores makings on the kitchen table once we’ve cleaned up from the meal as the 5 soldiers still standing prepare to process out back. LBB offers to carry the long metal roasting forks. TD, not to be outdone in the helpfulness department, hastily snatches up the chocolate and graham cracker platter and immediately spills 2/3 of its contents on the kitchen floor. Cracker carnage is everywhere. No more fancy skyscrapers. I duck into the pantry for 10 quick deep breaths to prevent me from throttling TD.
We restock the platter. I go to set up a s’more station on the table on our deck, but find it covered in dirt and rocks. LBB explains without shame that she and some neighborhood playmates were using the table to play family this afternoon, a game which involved spreading dirt and rocks all over the table for dinner. I can’t face cleaning it up just now and bring out a TV tray.
I eventually make it to the pit with DQ and the younger ones while BD checks on Bill, who is feeling slightly better but not fire pit better. I oversee the chaos that is smallish children and marshmallows and long sharp metal sticks and fire. My first hot woozy perfectly toasted marshmallow slips off my stick and onto the grate before slowly rolling into the dirt that surrounds the pit. Later I step in it without realizing and carry it into the house on my shoe, a dirty souvenir of tonight’s misadventures.
BD manages to join us around the pit at some point, having been assured by DQ that she is keeping a virtual eye on ill Bill. S’more-filled children drop away gradually, returning inside to get ready for bed. When the last one has gone, BD sniffles, “They all left us.” I am not seeing this as necessarily a bad thing.
I stay up later than I should to begin writing this, laying it aside just after midnight. At 1 a.m. I sense a child’s presence in our room and open my eyes just in time to catch DQ darting for the bathroom. She is sick now, too, really sick — but reluctant to disturb. I get her her own thrup and keep her company for the next 3 hours as we muddle our way to a way for her to go back to sleep. She may never eat corn pudding again.
Brownie Stew 