They never outgrow that

Yesterday the oven conked out. The part costs $170. I said, "Let's go buy a new stove." My husband said "I'm going to call my brother." Brother Donny designs power stations, he ought to know about electrical circuits on stoves, right?

Donny says, "We're in the car on our way somewhere, but we'll stop by and check it out." (He and his wife are really generous people like that. Thank, you D and K.) I come out of the office to previously folded laundry scattered all over and a host of other homey decorating touches, a la Paul.

Larry and I tear around hiding, stuffing, wiping and vaccuuming for the ten minutes it takes for Don and Kath to get here. They also have with them Kath's sister, brother-in-law and a friend, all up visiting from California on a hunting trip.

We split by gender, the men gathered in the kitchen doing voo-doo on the stove, the women chit-chatting. Paul comes out of the kitchen crying. Did I mention Larry and I are known as the family "granolas?" We do things differently, like vote liberal, shop at REI, etc. So D and K think of us as slightly nutty, in a loving way, and I don't know these other people at all. Paul wants Mommy comfort. I try to head him off. I pick him up and put him over my shoulder. Nothing doing. He wants to nurse. I offer him a bite of chicken. He starts pressing his open palms on my breasts and sliding them around, trying to pull up my shirt, and shouting "booby, booby, booby, booby." I'm thinking there is no doubt now that everyone knows I nurse an almost 2-year-old child.

Now the men have finished in the kitchen and everyone is watching. One of them says "We never outgrow that."

PS

Kath looks great. She's halfway through chemo and already getting some of her zip back.