Sunday we made new friends on our parish playground. Jon met a Mom with a 6 year old girl, a 4 year old boy and 2 1/2 year old. When the mom heard we were fellow daily Mass Goers and homeschoolers, we were quickly pressed into a visit. We ended up staying there for five hours! The visit was lovely in every way, except a case of green envy.
On Monday, Alex and Hannah kept pining for an immediate return visit. I quized Alex, and he didn't even remember the boys names! What did that matter, when they had the entire Fisher Price remote control rail road set in their super duper play room? (Hannah fell in love with the trunk full of real Disney princess dresses). As for me, I felt vague dissatisfied with our lack of a triple decker fruit basket . I also spent most of the day wishing I had been a cradle Catholic who always knew that I wanted to be a stay-at-home mother and therefore avoided burdening my husband with $92,000 of useless student loan debt.
And my husband . . . all Monday night he kept muttering about the state of our carpets. "We can't have them over here until I buy some serious carpet shampoo at Target. I'm serious, I'm talking a full two bottles here!" After listening to the missing "Our home is so boring! We don't have any fun toys" all day I totally called my better-half on it.
"You have serious carpet envy!"
Jon laughed. He then proceeded to say "But their carpet was a full two shades lighter than ours. It was so clean! AND they have two boys! We can't even keep ours neat with One!"
Ah! I felt bad for a few moments. "We have a dog," I said. "The dog is the one who tracks in all of the dirt. Our kids and their kids kick their shoes off at the door. I'm sure, if our friends had our dog they couldn't keep their carpets nearly that clean."
Throwing our dog under the bus. Wishing that we had more fresh fruit and less student loans. That would be uncharitable me. I'll be doing some serious penance with my scapular today.
