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they could quickly become grumpy and downright mean. Many three year old kids throw tantrums, but mothers would agree tantrums are so much worse when their little bodies are filled with sugar and junk.
    Minutes later Emily and Bella came running up to the house; Bella walking fast, dragging her blanket along the dirt mumbling something that resembled MeMe MaMa. At her age, she was sometimes confusing. She knew to call me Mommy. But sometimes I was also known as MeMe. Her blanket was MeMe, too, and milk was mostly known as MaMa. I was convinced this was a result of nursing her for thirteen months bundled in her same, now very dirty, blanket. Mommy equals milk. Milk equals comfort. Comfort equals blanket. Many times we are all under the same umbrella.
    “Hey, hon,” Chris said to me as he placed a hand on my shoulder. “Natalie gave me the car. Not enough car seats to get the bugga bears and her kids down here, so you’ll have to get the car back to her later tonight. I guess we can blame a long flight with two little monsters on not thinking about you taking the rental with the car seats and all the room.” Chris winked at me. Why hadn’t I thought of switching cars when I dropped Chris and the girls off at my sister’s house? Chris finished, “Also, Liza stopped by while we were there. She must have been watching the road for an unfamiliar rental car in the area, because she showed up almost as soon as you left. It would seem you have some kind of girls’ night you need to attend tonight at her new house. Or her grandmother’s house? I’m not sure. Welcome home. It’s not a vacation unless you have to visit twenty people before you change your underwear, right?” He handed me the keys to my sister’s car and walked over to shake my dad’s hand. He was a good man. After all our years of marriage, he still showed respect to my father, yet was comfortable enough in my father’s home to let me go out with the girls our first night in town.
    “The bags are in the house, Chris. I found a frozen pizza and some apples for the girls. I’m sure they will be ready for bed soon after the trip we’ve all had. Maybe you and Dad should order steamed shrimp from Molly’s once the kids are down. I’m gonna grab a quick shower if I am to be presentable and at a girls’ night.” I knelt down, hugged my girls, and hyped up the exciting meal I had cooking for them inside.
    Walking back into my father’s house brought back a memory of an argument my parents had when I was about eight years old. My mother had come back from her home in Florida. I never knew why or what she wanted, but she showed up, argued, and left again. I found myself staring at a spot on a door that seemed to have a burn mark on it. I think it was ketchup years ago, a bottle or a dinner thrown out of anger so long ago. It was barely there, but I could see it as clear as it was almost twenty-five years ago. A pillow flying through the room, a TV tray getting tossed aside, doors slamming, and some sit-com on the TV. I didn’t know what the argument was about. I didn’t care. But I did know I didn’t want my kids to be in a house with emotional pain. No one is perfect, but I could try to be perfect around my children. It was them who brought me back to the present. “Mommy, is it pizza night? Pop-Pop always has pizza night on Tuesday. It’s pizza night, Bella. It’s Tuesday!” Emily said with great excitement. It was actually Friday and just so happened to be pizza night because it was quick, easy, and available. I shook my head thinking I wasn’t sure Pop-Pop actually had a designated pizza night, but if Emily thought it was Tuesday, and if she thought her grandfather had a designated pizza night on Tuesdays, then I was sure they would enjoy it all the more.
    When I left for Liza’s an hour and a half later, they were both on the floor giggling as Dad tickled them with his beard. My grandfather used to tickle my neck with his beard until I laughed