Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 61268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 306(@200wpm)___ 245(@250wpm)___ 204(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 306(@200wpm)___ 245(@250wpm)___ 204(@300wpm)
Whatever. I refuse to think of my place as somehow less because Toren is more. So what if he thinks the place, which is covered in every shade of pink there is—apparently a hot color when it was last renovated in the nineties—isn’t pretty? I happen to like the white lino with the little pink flowers in the kitchen, the particle board white cupboards, the ancient pink speckled plastic feeling countertop, the pink metal blinds at all the windows, pink carpet in the living room and bedrooms, and so on.
Honestly, I hate pink, especially in the salmon hue. I just…well, I haven’t gotten around to doing renovations. Between being a single mom and running the shop, which is fully renovated because people actually see it, I just really don’t have a lot of free time to go ripping up carpets and putting in new kitchens. Oh, and the money. There’s that too. New interiors cost money.
I find Milo in his room, sitting on his bed and thumbing through a book about planets and stars. Hmm, at least he’s learning something while not doing what I asked him to do. He’s famous for this, for getting distracted or purposely distracting himself because he doesn’t want to be cleaning.
When he looks up and sees me, he gives me the guilty kid look, which is sheepish but also adorable, claps the book shut, and leaps off the bed.
“I was just getting to it,” he says so fast that he drops half the endings of his words. “I found this book, though, and mom, it’s so interesting!”
I don’t sigh, and I don’t get annoyed or mad. The kid is four years old, and he’s a great kid. Yes, his room is often a mess, yes, I have to basically freaking pull teeth to get him to do something about it, and yes, he is still responsible and helpful in so many other areas. And also, yes, did I mention he’s only four?
“What’s it about?” I drop down to my hands and knees in the middle of the room and start putting errant toys in the bins that line the far wall. Two bookcases take up the other wall, a dresser stands on the opposite side, and Milo’s bed is on the other end. I made the room into a square, with the center open so that he can play on the inexpensive area rug.
Instead of responding to that, Milo looks around. “Where’s Toren The Terrific?”
I nearly swallow my tongue. “I left him to watch dinner while I came to help you clean.”
“Gah!” Milo exclaims, so like his dad that I almost swallow my tongue a second time. “You should have sent him to clean!”
I grab a handful of plastic dinosaurs and turn around. “Is there something you know that I don’t?”
“He burned water today.”
“What?” I squeak. “How can one burn water?”
Milo shrugs. “I have no idea. It was boiling one minute, and the next, it was…uh…smelly. The pan smoked. He told me not to tell you, but we had to throw out the pot. He’s going to get you a new one tomorrow. Or a new set. I think he said set, but I can’t remember.”
I file that info aside for later. One thing I’m not going to do is interrogate my son. He can give me whatever information he wants, but I’m not going to sit here and ask him questions like a detective, no matter how tempting it might be. I don’t ever want him to be a stand-in between Toren and myself the way some people make their kids.
“What was he trying to make?”
“Macaroni and cheese. We ended up eating the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches you made.”
“What did you have for a snack then?”
“He cut up cheese and pickles, and we had crackers.”
“Oh, well, that’s not too bad. At least it wasn’t junk.”
Milo sighs hard. “Mom, you don’t buy junk. You barely even let me have normal things like cookies, so how could we have eaten junk when you don’t buy it?”
“Hmm.”
Milo shrugs while I put the dinosaurs in the toy box. Jeepers on a sandwich, this kid is smart. What am I going to do in a few years when he can out debate me or out logic me? “I was going to ask Toren if we could bake cookies this afternoon and then say sorry to you later, but I would have already eaten them, so it would have been worth it, but after he wrecked the pot, I was too scared.”
“Probably a good plan.” I scoop up the rest of the toys in one big sweep and deposit them in the toybox without my usual care for what goes where. It’s all going to end up on the floor again tomorrow, so I’m not sure why I bother with being orderly in the first place. I drop my voice to a whisper, and Milo leans in, surprised at me because I’ve always told him that whispering is rude. “Don’t ask him to bake. If you really want a cookie, go somewhere and buy one.”