The following is written by a guest blogger. The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not reflect the opinions of Bob Lacey, Sheri Lynch or the Bob & Sheri show.
My daughter got married this weekend.
Months of planning and Pinteresting all came together on Saturday in what turned out to be one of the sweetest, most love-filled weddings I’ve ever been a part of.
I sit on my couch tonight writing this,
feeling overwhelmingly happy, and also somewhat like I fell out of a tall tree and hit every branch on the way down.
For a week I have hauled things,
and hoisted things,
scrubbed, painted, and shopped;
Trying to assure that every last detail came out as perfect as we could all hope;
And it did.
Those months of laying awake at night fixating on life-altering decisions like what time to have Justin bring the ice really payed off,
and I felt so proud of my tribe and all we had accomplished as I watched my daughter and her new husband drive away that night.
In that moment I couldn’t have conceived of one thing that could have made that day any better.
But I just didn’t yet know..
That night I hobbled my weary self into the house hauling all of the aftermath.
Paper bags and fake eyelashes,
shoes and clothes and purses,
40 pounds of homemade mac and cheese.
I wanted to cry at the thought of putting it all away, but love bears all things,
so I grabbed plastic storage bags for the mac.
My cousin Laura, the Maid of Honor,
being the southerner she is,
was mortified when I left some still sitting out and said the words,
“We just can’t keep it all,” so she set out to prove me wrong as I collapsed, exhausted,
on the couch.
“It’s not going to fit,” I called out to her.
“Oh. I’ll make it fit,” she replied.
But 15 seconds later, as I heard the first few *plop**plop**plop* sounds,
followed by her, “Oh no”
I knew something had gone terribly wrong.
“What’s happening in there?” I asked,
and a flat “It didn’t fit” came her reply.
At that exact same moment I heard a noise that was easily identified as a waterfall of mac and cheese splattering on the ground.
My investigation revealed that the bag she had attempted to put in the freezer had burst open as she had tried to close the door,
resulting in a gallon of mac and cheese now all over my floor.
I have never been more tempted to just leave a giant mess.
Delirious from our day,
all we could do was laugh,
staring open-mouthed at that growing,
far-splattering yellow pile;
And laugh we did as the stream of macaroni just kept on plopping
a half a cup more at a time.
Before long Laura was laying on her side in the fetal position beside that mound of the mac and cheese she’d been so desperate to save,
barely able to breathe from the laughing.
I, by this time was standing at her feet, and was unable to go further for fear that one wrong move and I would definitely pee my pants.
Enter both dogs stage left.
Now one dog is scarfing so much macaroni that we fear she will throw up.
She takes breaks only to loudly gag directly on Laura, who is still dying laughing and laying on her side.
The other dog,
known territorial eater,
is hunched over part of the pile looking like a lion who just killed a gazelle.
He is growling when we say his name.
He completely straddles the mound,
willing his body to become one with it.
It is His Precious.
Getting him away from that macaroni without losing a finger, well that was quite a big feat.
I was laughing so hard that no sound was coming out when I next took steps to get cleaning supplies
and dramatically slipped in the cheese.
The lurch I did then, much like a cartoon, and the way that I flailed was all that it took to lose any final amount of control.
This is when Laura and I, simultaneously,
both peed our pants.
“All I feel is cheese and pee,” she cackled out from the floor.
“It started happening and fight or flight – they just didn’t work!”
We laughed for hours after that moment on my kitchen floor.
I’m still laughing about it today.
That morning the first thing I heard was my 12 year old, Chloe, screeching as she ran down the hall,
“No, Mama! No!”
She shoved a sandal into the bathroom.
The dog had eaten her wedding shoes.
Bit her ankle strap clean in half.
I spent a full half-hour Saturday morning fresh from the shower, panic-sewing a shoe buck naked except for a metal thimble.
Later, the reception would end up falling on the hottest day of the year.
We hadn’t put up sun shades.
We had to send someone for more drinks.
The MC held a folded card table over his head for some shade.
“Ceremony at 1:00. Reception to follow on the actual surface of the sun.”
That night I would go to use the pitch black outhouse and would get stuck for several terrifying minutes in a field as the lock jammed.
I would laugh thinking “Of course this is how it all ends.”
Late that evening,
after everyone was in bed,
I thought about how interesting it is that I always try so hard to make things in my life just so.
The perfect day.
The perfect photo.
The perfect hair style.
Perfect event;
But how often it’s the floor macaroni, wearing only a thimble, stuck-in-the-outhouse moments that I end up remembering the most fondly.
The things that I didn’t plan for.
I try so hard to make the path perfectly straight, forgetting that so often it’s the unexpected twists that make things turn out better than I could have planned.
I had worked myself to the bone to make that perfect day,
not remembering that my kind of perfect day is usually formed more from dust than diamonds.
I would bet that 20 years from now I’ll forget what font we chose for the seating chart,
but I will never ever forget that scene with Laura and the macaroni splattering all over my floor.
It was a perfect day.
But not because of where we hung the lights, or how the wedding arbor looked.
It was perfect because it was another day that was gifted to me to make memories with,
and it was filled up to the brim with beauty, laughter, a whole lot of left-over macaroni,
and joy.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
