Life with children (or with any other humans actually) is unpredictable.  No wonder they call it a roller coaster.  One minute someone is laughing, one minute someone is crying.  In one afternoon the living room is pristine tidy and smells like oranges and cloves and the next afternoon the living room is littered with magazines and blankets and smells like coughing.  At this point in the parenting game, I’m pretty certain all I’ll ever learn how to do is ride the waves, with no genuine hope of controlling the tides.

Yesterday I stopped by a friend’s house to pick something up.  She has four kids and a long term house guest.  Their home was abuzz with laughter and kids were reading and playing and laughing and being loud and being normal. It was fantastic and regular and I laughed at the picture it presented because it looks so much like the picture my house presents too.

Despite all their mess (and it’s SO much mess y’all) and their mountains of Legos to step on and art pens left out and library books in unsanctioned rooms and cereal bowls scattered hither and yon, I do love these people and this life with them.  They’re funny and they’re family.

And this little snapshot of life from last night that I’m going to relay here reminds me that there are moments that these people just make me laugh and remind me of what fun it can be to live together.

Probably the last time I used any sort of “refreshing” face mask was more than ten years ago. I can’t even remember when I have last used one.  So my children would be unfamiliar with them.  Riley sells a charcoal mask that I’ve heard people rave about and so, last evening, I decided would be a good time to try it out.  I stood in my bedroom, applying the mask by the mirror.  It’s gray and looks nearly black when it’s dry.

I had the mask pretty much all applied when I heard footsteps and Bergen popped his head into my room.  I made a face of surprise for effect because I knew he would laugh.  I was right.  He cracked up.  A lot.  (I looked pretty weird.)  But what was more hilarious to me was that when he finished laughing, this twelve year old boy who, to my knowledge has never, or only rarely, ever seen a girl wear a face mask, asked me a question.  With a grin he said, “Want me to go cut some cucumbers?”

What?

I’m guessing movies have influenced my son’s knowledge base that when girls wear face masks they also wear cucumbers on their eyelids?

Anyway, I said yes because why not.

Then I went to the sofa to lie down quietly for the ten to twenty minutes you are supposed to wear the mask.  During that time Piper and Otto also got a good laugh.  And then proceeded to get lotion and give me a foot massage.  Because that’s what cucumber wearing mask wearing moms need?  I don’t know where they have received their education on these matters but I am not complaining.

As I was on my sofa enjoying both the quiet and the foot treatment, I figured I should embrace this mask more often if it has magical powers to produce sons who cut up cucumbers for me and children who offer a foot rub.

When I walked to the sink to wash off the mask, London informed me that she had taken pictures of me (and edited them for her own amusement).  I should have known not all of the kids would embrace treating me with dignity whilst charcoal masked.

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