Happy Father's Day

An oldie, but goodie.....

Father’s Day, 2006.

It started out like any other lazy Sunday.

After church, the kids took a nap.

Billy wasn’t feeling well, so he took a nap as well.

I had grandiose plans for my husband. In addition to wrapping the requisite Father’s Day gift of fishing shirts, I had purchased some awesomely thick porterhouse steaks for dinner. Then I started the arduous task of baking Billy’s favorite dessert from scratch: coconut cream pie with mile-high meringue.

Jake the eighteen-month old Snake had other plans for me, however. While I was at the stove, mixing the coconut custard for the pie, Jake had crawled up onto the middle of the kitchen table. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted him. He had a saltshaker in one hand and a peppershaker in the other. And he was shaking both hands like mad. After I dropped the hand mixer on the floor and screamed, “JAKE!” I smacked him on his hands and put him in his crib. After he cried for a solid fifteen minutes, I went into his room, told him that neither crawling onto the kitchen table nor dumping out the salt and pepper shakers were acceptable behaviors, and let him out of his crib.

Half an hour later, the pie was in the oven. I started to beat the egg whites, sugar, and Cream of Tartar into the most beautiful of meringues. And what popped into my peripheral vision? The salt and pepper-shaking monkey, once again on the middle of the kitchen table, with salt and pepper everywhere. “JAKE!” I provided him with Hand Smacking #2 of the afternoon, and off to the crib he went, bawling his eyes out. After the requisite fifteen minutes and the same “don’t climb on the table blah blah blah” speech, I let him out.

An hour later, the meringue-topped beauty of a pie was chilling comfortably in the refrigerator. The steaks were on the grill. All seemed to be going according to plan. And then I turned around.

A five-gallon bucket of dishwashing detergent was removed from its resting place under the kitchen sink and was dumped all over the kitchen floor. I screamed for the third time of the day, “JAKE!”

He came out from behind the kitchen island, and…..smacked his own hand!

At least the punishments of the day had been memorable, if not effective.

Why my little guy picked this day of all days to become a ceremonious dumper of powder-like substances remains a mystery to me.

What I do know is that the steaks were overdone.

And I don’t think my husband bought the “It’s Jake’s fault” story.

And no, I never did get a letter confirming my nomination for Wife of the Year.