Pizza, Pizza Daddio

Sears came to steam clean our carpets at 8:00 this morning.

I always dread the cleaning absolutely everything in the house before the carpets can be cleaned part. It seems, at times, in our toy and paper and clothes cluttered house, like an impossible task.

But I'm wrong. The cleaning up goes quickly. It's cake compared to the next part: living on wet carpet with a two-year-old when it's rainy and humid outside. Oh, yeah, baby, that's a challenge. And the soles of my feet itch; I'm trying not to think too hard about what's in the "carpet protectant" they sprayed all over everywhere before leaving.

I try to ignore it when Paul rubs the soles of his bare feet then doesn't go immediately to wash his hands. I can't ignore it when Ellie decides to suck on her toes as I'm trying to rock her to sleep. Yuck.

This evening, for the first time all day, Ellie seemed interested in a brief session of independent play. Wahoo! I sat down on the couch with the end of my novel for a few minutes. (Friend Elizabeth, the only reason I am not going to beat you with this book next time I see you is because you're not my sister Jessica, with whom I'm been having the same fight for about 15 years. She too loves to give me books where every conceivable horrible thing happens to the characters.)

I heard Ellie move from the front room into the kitchen, making her way through the obstacle course of miscellaneous chairs, benches, and tables cluttering our small kitchen until the carpet dries.

Suddenly, she was beside me, leaning casually against the couch, and I looked at her. She was eating a slice of mushroom pizza as if it were nothing out of the ordinary. (I ordered a pizza for our dinner tonight and we ate it outside on the patio, probably tracking back in sand and dust, dammit. Cooking in the "kitchen" seemed impossible. The remains of the pie were out on the counter. I often top half the pizza with mushrooms as a big NO BOYS ALLOWED sign for my husband.)

I know she's getting to be such a big girl, but it amazed me to see her walk right up to me (over the clean wet carpet!) with a slice of pizza she'd procured herself, holding it by the crust and eating from the tip just like I would, like most grown people do. We're still at the stage when an adult provides Ellie with most of what she eats.

How big is Ellie? So big!

I guffawed, which startled her into dropping a piece of saucy topping onto the carpet.