Mustard

Smitten's daughter (9) had a birthday party. Her Dad was out of town at his family's cottage, so i helped out with taxi service and party support. Smitten checked with him, to see if he was cool with it, because otherwise he would have been doing taxi. He was fine with me doing the driving.

It was a nice party for the girl and her friends.

I was helping with cooking and food (surprise) among other things. It was time for the kids to eat. I began asking each of them what they wanted on their hot dogs and preparing them for the kids.

Smitten asked "What are you doing? let them make their own dogs."

It kind of rattled me for a few minutes. I did what she asked, but it bothered me a bit. I couldn't figure out why. she was right, they were old enough to load up their own hot dogs.

When it occurred to me. I loaded all my kids food, and all the kids food at parties at our place because if there was a spill, stbx-Mrs_C would get all psycho on me. as i thought things through i remembered that she had gone all freaky on me one time when one of the kids had friends over about some mustard that had gotten spilled on the white plastic outdoor table and had demanded that i bleach it until the tiny yellow mark was gone.

she had just gone mental all over me about this stain. the table wasn't new. it had that sun worn and slightly greyish undertone that those cheapo white tables get.

it occurred to me that she would usually get spazzy about spills and such - even if they were easily cleaned up, or just part of normal kitchen use.

that's one of the reasons i eventually rarely got to eat with my family was because i was too busy cleaning the kitchen up to avoid getting grief to join them before they had finished eating.

when i talked to Smitten about it, she said "that makes a lot of sense. when we had that picnic in the park, and you were loading that plate with food, i assumed it was for you, but it was [Son's]. i found it strange that you were loading a 15 year old's plate. but that makes perfect sense. you were serving it on the table cloths i had brought, so stains and spills would have been on your mind. i was wondering about that, but it makes sense now."

mustard

yeah

i let some kids load their own dogs today