Traffic, baths and short-order cook

My commute today was right under three hours. It took me 1 1/2 hours to get to work and almost that same amount of time to get home. Nerves shot, energy sapped and gasoline drained (my gas and my Suburban's). 

Details that tonight was a Blue Apron meal night on the calendar which I've come to discover requires a lot of chopping and prep. On any other night, those activities with a good big ol' poor of wine would be relaxing and enjoyable. Not tonight. Oh, yeah, because I was also a short-order cook. As soon as we walked in the door -- the girls were playing at the neighbor's house because the babysitter had plans that required her to leave at her usual 5:30 p.m. time -- one started saying in that'll too familiar whine that she was hungry. And, she wanted pizza. Grateful for a frozen, I popped that in for her. So as I chopped turnips and cabbage -- it's finally fall! -- my other girl started saying she was starving (upped it a bit for dramatic effect) and she wanted oatmeal with toast. Knocked that out and worked on the red onion and figs for the autumnal chicken dish.

Holy cow.

After finally eating, cleaning up, loading the dishwasher, throwing clothes into the wash, I sat down and remembered the girls probably should be bathed. 

The internal discussion went something like this:

'They took a bath two nights ago.'

'It rained today so there was no recess so there was no sweat.'

'Both can wear ponytails tomorrow.'

'Oh yeah we have to do an observe the moon activity so we are going to use a wash cloth to clean off and call it a night.'

So no bath. I'm OK with it. Why is Camille scratching her head? Is she thinking or finding something that needs to be cleaned off? I'm going with pondering her word wall words.

Fourth part tonight was a simple glass of wine while writing this. I'll take it. Sometimes things are out of our control -- traffic and the appetites of six-year-old girls -- so we take a deep breath, pour a little more in the glass and sit.

Without baths.