When I was a little girl, I would pretend that I was a housewife. I’d set up baby dolls around the kitchen table, and prepare a delicious fake dinner for my pretend husband who would be walking in the door any minute.

Fast forward a hundred years later. It’s dinnertime. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 5:30. Here’s me, chasing my 2 year old away from the stove, screaming, “HOT! HOT!”, like a crazy bitch. My four year old snuck some chocolate and is hiding in a corner, shoveling it in like a homeless person.

I’m making spaghetti.

Spaghetti Pros:
A. It’s the easiest thing to make.
B. It’s the quickest thing to make.
And three, my kids eat that shit up like it’s goin’ out of style.

Spaghetti Cons:
It’s a huge pain in the ass to clean up.

But the pros outweigh the cons here. And I’ll have my husband home shortly to help clean up the damage.

I’m doing my quick sweep of the house to get somewhat organized before the night shift begins. Night shift includes getting my little assholes fed, cleaned and in their pajamas. Then, I’ll have approximately 2 hours to do what I need to do before I become dead tired and retire to my slumber.

But back to dinner. I’m burning it. Not the spaghetti, but the garlic bread in the toaster oven. Smoke is filling up the house, and my awesome, high-tech a.k.a. P.O.S. smoke alarm springs into action.

THERE IS SMOKE IN THE HALLWAY. THE ALARM WILL SOUND. THE ALARM IS LOUD. CHIME. CHIME. CHIME. THERE IS SMOKE IN THE HALLWAY. THE ALARM WILL SOUND. THE ALARM IS LOUD. CHIME. CHIME. CHIME.

Now let me set the scene here. My daughter is deathly afraid of the smoke alarm. A few months back, it went off in the middle of the night. For no reason. Woke the whole family up from a sound sleep. Scared the shit out of us. My daughter still talks about it. She hates the smoke alarm with a passion.

So, back to the dinner time fiasco. The shitty smoke alarm automated voice lady is going on and on about the SMOKE IN THE HALLWAY, and I’m running up and down the hallway waving a kitchen towel like a helicopter. I’m opening every door and every window in the surrounding area. It still won’t shut the fuck up. Finally, just when I’m about to throw the toaster out the front door, the alarm stops. Pheeew, with a side of Phuuuck.

My daughter immediately breaks into the 5 other stories when my cooking set off the alarm, and I go into mommy-mode, with hugs and kisses to calm her fears and get her back on track.

My son appears to be cool with the unplanned circus that just took place. He’s running along the couch butt naked, waving a kitchen towel in the air. Monkey see, monkey do, right? Except, I can assure you I was fully clothed in my towel waving. BTW, you can purchase your official “I burned dinner” kitchen towel by emailing us at sothishappened@bleepingmotherhood.com.

Is anyone out of breath yet? Great, me too.

It’s time to drain the spaghetti and get the sauce warmed up. Oh, and throw the mother effin’ garlic bread in the garbage.

It’s 6:03. My husband walks in the door at 6:10. It’s only 7 minutes away, but it feels like a lifetime.

It’s 6:12. Where the fuck is he? Doesn’t he know that I plan every moment around his 6:10 arrival? That he needs to help get the kids’ drinks, so I can get the food on the plates and start cutting up the spaghetti? Just as I start cursing him into his next reincarnation as a raging case of hemorrhoids, I hear the front door open. That lucky bastard.

The kids scream “DADDY!”, and run to greet him.

I continue putzing around to get the kids all set up, and begin eating myself. I only have about 3 ½ minutes of what I call “Technical Eating”, which means, I have 3 1/2 minutes where I am technically chewing and swallowing my food at human standards. The last 3-5 minutes of eating is usually eating like an animal (due to 1 or both of my kids making my dinner ritual utter hell).

My husband gets himself washed up, and joins us around the table. He gets a glass of ice water, puts some grated cheese on his pasta and snags himself a fork. He sits down to eat, but then gets back up and I notice that he is scurrying around the kitchen, in and out of the cupboards. I’m tempted to ask him what the fuck he is doing, but I’m at the tail end of my Technical Eating, and I’m not willing to mess that up with small talk. He’s a big boy. He can figure out whatever it is that needs figuring outing.

A minute or two later, he’s still in what seems to be a serious search for something. He’s in the pantry and I hear things dropping off the shelves with a sprinkle of swearing. Finally, he comes to sit down, and places a single napkin on the table.

I reach out and grab it, and blow my nose in it.

“Are you freakin’ kidding me?” he says.

“What?”

“I just spent 5 minutes looking for what appears to be the last napkin in the free world and you go and blow your nose in it?”

I couldn’t help but laugh my ass off about that little napkin incident. In fact, I laughed all night long about it. My husband kept asking, are you still laughing about the napkin? And I was.

Thank God for moments like these. Otherwise I think us parents might have gone off the deep end a long, long time ago.

And listen, it might not be exactly like my little girl/housewife dream scenario, but it’s pretty damn close.

Is your dinnertime a shit show? Do you blow your nose in your husband’s napkin? Tell us your deal at sothishappened@bleepingmotherhood.com