I Ate Dinner in the Dark.
by Sharon Hanks

Tonight, I ate my dinner in the dark. The power wasn't turned off. All of the light bulbs were functional. Even the circuit breaker box was a-okay.

I was hiding.

I went to bed last night with a colossal headache and it was still raging strong when I woke up this morning. Most of the day, it hurt to blink. By the time dinner time rolled around, the adrenaline that had buffered me through the day was at an end and left me ragged and on edge.

Somehow, I managed to make marinara with meat and sausages (and hid a pureed sweet potato in it for added nutrition!) along with a good sized batch of pasta. I managed to do this while holding my screaming, fussy, teething, hungry, 17-month old daughter in my arms. During this cooking spree, my three year old son, Mitchell, woke up from his nap and was hungry for attention and snacks.

You can imagine the howling, wailing and gnashing of toddler teeth.

My husband left our bedroom and came down from studying. Somehow, he managed to corral the kids into the living room while I finished cooking. But before he left me, he did something magical. (Now, I've seen him do this before but never really acknowledged the merits of this action. I am a true believer now.) He put up the baby gate. Yes, he gated our children away from me and the kitchen.

Two pitiful little faces stood at the entrance to the kitchen and wailed, "MOMMA! MOMMA! MOMMA!" in an off-tune, minor key while I whisked from sink to oven to counter to sink. And what a magical time it was for me! No little bodies underfoot. No one clinging to my legs. No one trying to physically turn me away from what I was doing so they could yell, "UP! UP!! UP!!!!" at me while giving me puppy-dog-eyes.

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