It was one of those days…

At 6:30 a.m., after Eli and I had gotten up and cuddled on the couch a while, I got a mug off the shelf, got a box of tea down off the shelf, then got distracted.

At 10:00 a.m., after breakfast and a run and a shower, I put the tea bag in the mug and filled the kettle, then got distracted.

At 10:30 a.m., I turned the gas on under the kettle, but then Eli noticed and started to clamor for his own cup of tea: “Tea? tea? Li-li tea??” And while he’s perfectly welcome to join me occasionally in a cup of lukewarm decaffeinated tea, this time I just wasn’t up for the supervision: he wants to have his tea in the little personalized ceramic mug my parents gave him; he wants to get an ice cube out of the freezer (all by himself; one day I fear he’ll tumble headfirst into the low freezer drawer and be lost among the frozen edamame, berries, tortillas and the mason jar of limoncello I made 2 years ago and haven’t touched) and plop it, repeatedly, into the cup; he wants to “duhnk! duhnk! duhnk!” the tea bag and put in the “shuh-shuh” all by himself, stirring, stirring, stirring with the spoon he gets out of the drawer all by himself (after hauling the stool over to the silverware drawer, pulling the drawer out so hard I’m afraid he’s going to brain himself, and then half-falling off the stool because he forgets that he’s actually on the stool). It all quickly devolves into water play which sometimes is fine, but today I just didn’t have the strength.

So I took both boys outside to play baseball instead.

At 3:00 p.m., during Eli’s nap, I boiled the water and poured it into the mug over the tea bag, but then I got distracted.

At 4:00 p.m., Eli having woken up, I took the tea bag out of the mug, added some milk, and put the mug into the microwave, but then I got distracted.

At 4:30 p.m., after Tony took Eli to collect Ben from school, I got the mug out of the microwave and finally sat down to drink my cup of lukewarm tea. It really tasted pretty good.