The End of Milk

As wild as this sentence sounds, it's true that Danny DeVito flew me and my family out to New York City this weekend. 

The night before we left, Zoe asked for a cup of milk. 

"We don't have any. We ran out yesterday."

"That's okay, you can just go to the store and get more!" my brilliant son offered. 

I explained that I was not going to be going to the store before we left for New York City, that it didn't make sense as we were leaving at dawn the next day. 

"But I LOVE MILK!" Zoe shouted, aghast.

"Can I have a cup of milk?" Rowan asked, possibly hoping that this was merely a ~Zoe Problem~. 

"What?!" I laughed. I looked at Tyler, who was equally flabbergasted across the kitchen island. "I just told you we don't have any milk." 

"Ohhhh, right. Why can't you just go to the store and get some?"

"Am I in a real-live version of Who's On First?" I wondered aloud. My grandmother performed that Abbott & Costello sketch on-stage at her Jewish community senior center at age 79. I'll never forget how much she giggled on stage with her friend during the performance, barely able to get the lines out she was laughing so hard. 

Zoe's bottom lip began to tremble, her eyes brimmed with tears. "Mama. Are we...ever going to have milk again, like when we come back from New Yawk?" she warbled in her perma-New York accent that contradicts her Californian roots. 

"You guys. YES. We WILL have milk again! I am just not going to the store for it when we have to leave in 14 hours for the airport. Okay? I promise."

"Can I have a yo-gut, then?" Zoe negotiated. 

This moment really clarified to me that kids, truly, have no idea what the hell is going on. Sometimes they act like they do, but they must just be playing along, because the real and genuine fear of never again having milk in our household on the other side of a trip, while potentially true for many families in war-torn or impoverished countries, was so far from the reality of them having everything they usually want at their refrigerator doorsteps, anytime they wanted. I've been thinking about it ever since - Will we…ever have milk again????

They screamed when we woke them up at 6:15am for our flight. "WHAT THE HECK! It's STILL DARK OUTSIDE???!" Zoe wondered, mouth agape. 

"I can't WAIT to tell my friends when I get back to school on Monday that I woke up for our airplane ride IN THE DARK!!!!" Rowan squealed. 

When minutiae of life gets you down, I highly recommend having a child around. The wonders at the world simply never cease, it's a constant delight. Sure, irritating when the wonders are too great to complete an A to B task in an efficient manner, à la every night when I ask Rowan to turn Zoe's light off after we finish reading books and he gets distracted by two to seven other "wondrous" things in the room before I have to yell ROWAN! LIGHT! for the 4th time in 45 seconds, but at most of the other times, ah, yes.

Wonder is contagious. 

More on the whys and wherefores of why New York and DeVito, coming soon. 

xo xo,

Gone Girl