A Mom Always Knows & Aren't I Civil?

We got home from school last night, and I realized that I didn't have any milk in the house. Now, that's not such a big deal, as none of us really like milk, but we were scheduled to have mashed potatoes for dinner. Since I'm such a gourmet, the instant mashed tators I'd bought needed milk instead of water to make. That meant I was off to the grocery store after giving the boys instructions to "Get Your Homework DONE!".

I wasn't gone ten minutes. I got back and Mr. A is on the phone with his dad, who had apparently called 3 times while I was gone. Three times!

Mr. A wanted to know if he could go out to dinner with his dad. Part of me wanted to tell him absolutely not, but that's the mean and petty part, so I told him I didn't care. I'm nothing if not gracious. Ha! Mr. A proceeded to tell his dad that was okay and hung up. I asked when his dad would be there, and Mr. A says that he just pulled in the drive. Hello?!?!?! It's a quarter after four in the afternoon.

Apparently, X wasn't sure how long it would take him to cross the bridge that separates his town from the rest of civilization now that it is closed except for one small lane that has to serve 50,000 commuters a day. The hour he gave himself as extra time was just that...extra time, which is why he was on my doorstep way before he was expected.

Mr. A hadn't even started getting ready for his ball game, so I went out to the car and invited X and his daughter into the house to wait. Mr. A is a teenager, so him getting ready could take 3 minutes to 30. They stood in the foyer like bumps and I kept having to brush past on my way to find whatever it was that Mr. A had lost, so I finally told them that they were more than welcome to go sit upstairs on the couch and wait. I'm not exactly sure which one of us was more surprised by my civility, but the invitation had been offered. X sat and watched me race around to help Mr. A, cook dinner and correct spelling all at the same time. I wanted to smack him and ask him to at least correct the spelling, but I didn't...see, civility!

So, they finally left for Mr. A's game and Bugaboo and I scarfed up our yummy instant potatoes before heading off to soccer. We had to cross the same bridge and had a little more trouble than X did, but we were still on time.

Bugaboo and his team won their game, and they were all happy. I raced him off the field as fast as I could to see if I couldn't catch the tail end of Mr. A's game.

Estimations were it would take 30 minutes to cross the bridge back to civilization, so I called X to tell him I didn't think we'd make it. It was already 7:10, and the ball field was at least 30 minutes from the OTHER side of the bridge. I was told that it was only the top of the second inning (in an hour and ten minutes????) and they were losing, so I said I'd see how quick we got across the bridge.

Well, we got across and I got us to the game by the top of the fourth. We walked up just as Mr. A made a spectacular catch in center field. The boys were all pumped because they'd managed to get ahead since I'd talked to X.

It came time for Mr. A to get up to bat and I walked up to where X and another of the dads were standing. I asked X if he'd been hit by a pitch yet. The answer was no and I informed them both that he'd get hit this time. The other dad just looked at me. I laughed and said that it was starting to appear that Mr. A didn't think it was a game if he hadn't gotten hit by a pitch at least once.

Mr. A took the first two balls, swung at the next, ducked down to miss getting hit for pitch four and was nailed in the head by pitch five. I just laughed. X looked at me and just shook his head. The other dad gave a shocked little laugh and said, "You weren't kidding, were you?" Um...No.

A mom always knows.

Until later...