My mother always used to say that she really paid for it anytime she left the house without her kids (namely… well, me and my brother.) She would go out for an evening of wine and frivolity and inevitably return to stomach flu, or a head injury, or weeks of clinging, needy children.

I always thought my mother had a flair for the dramatic. There was no way we were that bad.

Ha…. ha ha …. HA!

I got home from many wonderful hours in NYC with my Dad, lost in the humorous and magical world of Broadway’s SPAMALOT. I was calm, mellow, relaxed. I had conversations uninterrupted by the anyone chirping the word “Mommy?”. It was divine.

Then they made me pay.

The baby nursed…forever. Okay understandable, and snuggly, and cute.

I can deal.

Then came bedtime, and the screaming, kicking, crying thirty or so minutes of torment devised by my six year old. You see… she had something in her eye. She needed some Visine to help get it out. However, she didn’t want me to put the Visine into her eye, so after much screaming and fighting, I agreed to give up and let her go to sleep without Visine. This decision resulted in thirty or so minutes of screaming, kicking, and crying about how much she needed the Visine.

Sigh.

Then, the cat threw up in the laundry room.

And my bedroom.

And her bedroom.

And the Living Room.

Right… and under my desk where I stepped in it when sitting down to blog.

Because my mom is not overly dramatic. She is right.

They really do make you pay.