Mother's day

by Jessica Gobble

The wind blew relentlessly through the front door. Black clouds rolled across the sky threatening a large thunderstorm that was on its way. Tanner was due home in a few hours and I could get some piece and quiet for a few minutes when he did.

"Mommy!" Lillya screamed at me from the front porch. "Mommy! Mommy!" She ran to me in the yard with dirt stained tears running down her small porcelain face from her sky blue eyes. Her raspy blonde hair blew all around her face from the wind. I looked up from my gardening to see what her problem was. She was holding one hand in the other cradling it like a newborn child. I held her hand lightly in my hand as to not hurt it anymore in case she did something pretty bad to her hand.

"What happened sweetheart?" My tone was calm and sweet with her. She just knew that her hand hurt and wanted it to feel better.

"I falled down," she sobbed. The streaks on her face were getting heavier. I examined her hand more closely. Just a small cut that barely scraped the top of her skin showed on her palm.

I kissed the scrape for her. "It should be better now sweetie." She smiled sweetly at me and ran off to play some more.

Half an hour later, the rain started. The rain wasn't just a trickle, but a downpour. I hurried and took Lillya inside the house and we both cleaned the dirt from our clothes and our faces and hands. We had luckily beaten the rain, so we weren't extremely wet, just slightly damp.

"Read Mommy!" Lillya cried happily to me as she ran with a couple of books in her hands. Snuggling into my lap while I sat on the couch, we began to read. Thunder clapped outside making both of us jump in our seats. "I'm scared." Lillya snuggled closer to me as another clap of thunder sounded. I just rocked her as she snuggled.

Only a few hours later, the rain and thunder had let up some, but it was still a little chilly to go back outside. Lillya had fallen asleep in my lap as I had read to her, and I had laid her down on the floor with a small blanket and pillow while I took a short needed nap on the couch. I had only intended on sleeping for a few minutes, but the next thing I knew was that I was awakened by a jumping toddler.

"Don't jump on me Lillya, please. Mommy is sleeping," I told her softly and rubbed my eyes to help me wake up.

"Look what I did for you Mommy." She pointed toward the wall. My eyes gaped wide open as I took in the entire black permanent marker that Lillya had used on my cream colored walls of the living room.

I felt like screaming. I then looked down at the tan leather couch and saw that she had drawn all around me as well. I didn't want to seem like a mean mommy, but my fuse started to go down. I was now a ticking bomb waiting to explode.

"You shouldn't have done that honey. You don't color on Mommy's walls." I quickly made my way to the office and grabbed some printer paper and Lillya's crayon box. "Here," I sat her down at the kitchen table--which also had been colored with the marker--and showed her that she should only color on paper with crayons.

I turned to go to toward the kitchen sink. But my eye caught white powder all around the floor. I looked at the pantry door; it was as wide open as possible and the flour had been tossed around like Lillya had been playing in snow.

*Tick, tock* went the bomb in my head and patience was waning quickly. If something else went wrong, I felt like exploding. I will clean it up later, I told myself. I went around the kitchen then pulling out pans and pots and vegetables and meat for dinner. Tanner would be home soon and would be hungry, so I thought I would start dinner.

First, as I was pulling out the meat that had been thawing in the fridge, the bowl of jell-o pudding had fallen out and spilled all over the kitchen floor mixing with the flour. Then, as I poured the marinade on the cooking meat in the pan, and began to stir it around, I stirred to quickly in order not to burn the meat, but marinade splashed out all over my clothes, the floor and the counter.

The door from the garage opened and closed. "Dinner will be ready in a minute," I yelled out since my back was facing the door. I turned around to see my handsome husband, but found no Lillya at the table. She had added more color to the table from the crayons and apparently had gone out the door.

"AHHH!" I ran over to the door and found her inside the garage playing with her daddy's hammer and nails that he hadn't cleaned up after fixing up a shelf in the garage for his things. I pulled her back into the house and found that the meat was burning in the pan. That's when the garage door sounded Tanner's homecoming. He came in and just the shear look on his face made me want to scream. He was smiling with a combination of awe and shock. The house had never been this messy.

"What happened here?" he asked. "You two have a party and didn't invite me?"

"Daddy!" Lillya ran over and jumped into Tanner's arms.

"Hey munchkin, did you help Mommy today?" All Lillya could do was smile and nod with approval.

"I'll call out for pizza Lizzy and clean up the mess. Don't worry about it. Why don't you go read a book or watch a movie?" That was everything in my mind that I had wanted to hear from him. I went over to him and kissed him passionately covering his white shirt in marinade sauce. The bomb had been diffused by his caring words.

"Thanks, I love you."

"I love you too."

Jessica Gobble is a writer who is currently working on her first novel. She has received her Associates Degree from UVSC and lives with her husband and two-year old daughter in Cedar Hills, Utah.