Vindication Comes In Many Forms
Saturday Night at the Newlin House
Jason and I were making dinner. Jonas came downstairs, climbed up in his chair at the breakfast bar, grabbed the nearby bottle of olive oil and laid it on its side to watch the oil slosh back and forth.
Jason – Jonas! Don’t tip that bottle like that! Your mom doesn’t always put lids on very tight and it might spill!
Jonas set the bottle upright.
Me – Wait, what? ‘Your mom’ doesn’t put lids on tight? Since when? And how is this my fault?
Jason – I didn’t say it was your fault…
Me – Uh, good try. You didn’t say ‘people don’t put lids on tight’ or even just ‘the lids aren’t tight enough to prevent spillage’. You called me out as a loose-lidder. Like I’m specifically the problem in this situation.
Jason – I’ve told you a million times I don’t think you put the tops on tight enough.
Me (eyebrows scraping the ceiling) – If by ‘a million times’ you mean ‘we’ve never once in the 10 years we’ve been married discussed any unhappiness you have with my lid attaching abilities and this is the very first I’ve heard of it’, then yes, a million times.
Jason – You watch me spill things all the time because I go to pick something up and you haven’t put the lid on tight enough.
Me – Number one, I seriously have no idea what you’re talking about. Number two, maybe if I didn’t put the cap on completely it was because I WASN’T FINISHED USING WHATEVER WAS OUT, and you were putting it away prematurely. Number three, the fact that as far as you’re concerned, my observing you spill something and sigh in irritation without making eye contact with me or actually saying any words, equates to us having a conversation where you’ve asked me a million times to put lids on more tightly is EXACTLY WHY being married to you has given me a permanent eye twitch.
Jason – I think you’re overreacting slightly.
Me – I am NOT overreacting!!! This is exactly the root of all of our communication problems!! Which is to say, all of the communicating from your side is going on inside your head!
Jonas – Mom, Gray put gum in my hair.
Jason and Me – WHAT?!
Three minutes later I was holding down a sobbing four year old while Jason carefully used creamy peanut butter to coax the wad of gum out of Jonas’s hair.
Jonas – I’M ALLERGIC TO PEANUTS!!! YOU CAN’T DO THIS!!
Jason – We’re not feeding it to you, just putting it in your hair to get out the gum. I’m not even touching your scalp.
Me – Jo, it’s this or shave your head. And if you hadn’t spit the gum at your brother, he wouldn’t have smashed it into your hair. You have no one to blame but yourself.
Jonas – I’M SCARED OF PEANUT BUTTER!!!
Me to Jason – I think we’ve done a good job making sure he’s careful about his nut allergy…
Jason – OK, I think I’ve got the gum out. I’m going to take him up and shower him.
Jason picked Jonas up and carried him up the stairs. I stood up from the couch to head back to the kitchen to finish making dinner and spotted the jar of peanut butter still sitting next to the couch. I reached down to grab it by the top and put it away. As I lifted the peanut butter by the lid, the jar came off and went bouncing across the carpet splattering peanut butter as it went.
Me – AUGH!!!! SEE! I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE IN THIS HOUSE WHO DOESN’T SCREW LIDS ON TIGHT ENOUGH!
Ten minutes later Jason and Jonas came down the stairs. Jonas was covered head-to-toe in hives.
Jason – Apparently he doesn’t have to ingest the peanuts for them to be a problem.
Jonas – I told you I was scared of the peanut butter.
Me – What we’ve learned here tonight is daddy is always wrong. And if you don’t want your parents to force an allergic reaction on you, you should keep gum in your mouth where it belongs.