It's just a couch

While patiently sitting in the waiting room for Eva's eight-year-old pediatrician visit last week, Eva angled to get her little hands on my precious iPhone.  Now, there was a brief period of insanity when I first got my phone (the little darling is coming up on her one year birthday, bless her heart), I reveled in the opportunity it afforded me to completely ignore my children while they played Angry Birds. Soon enough, however, I wised up and realized that, as with any toy, fighting ensues over "turns," glazed-over expressions and selective deafness quickly rear their ugly heads and so, much to my children's collective chagrin, I no longer allow them to play on iPhone.

This day, at the doctor's office, I was lucky to have recently discovered a batch of super fun Chabad videos on YouTube to show Eva. And not only that, I got an email of the latest kiruv video from Aish, AS I WAS SITTING THERE IN THE WAITING ROOM.  How lucky is that? So after we were ushered in to the room to wait for the doctor, I said, "Eva, you are so lucky today, do you know why? I am going to let you watch the Chabad video AND the Aish video. Cool, right?"  The poor girl is so deprived of feeling that iPhone in her hand that she jumped at the chance to watch the videos. Genius, right?

And just then, as we were enjoying our excellent viewing, Dr F walked in.
"Excuse me," he said, "sorry to interrupt your game."
"Oh, no, Doctor," I said gravely, "I don't believe in video games, we were just catching up on our Chabad and Aish videos."

Bam! Am I the most responsible parent or what? (Yes M family, Gorby does spend hours playing Wii at your house and yes, E family, ditto for Pes, but I didn't have to tell Dr F that, now did I?)

Then Dr F asked Eva, "So Eva, how are you doing in school?"
"OK," she replied, "but I recently got an "S" on a reading paper." S is for Satisfactory, like a B in real life.
"What does "S" stand for?" asked the doctor.
"Superbad," said Eva. He looked at me, disapprovingly.
"Well, in our house, that is kind of what it stands for," I said, defensively.
He opened his eyes wide, told me Eva is short, and we went on our merry way.

Now, I am relaying this tale for a specific purpose: that is, Eva has clearly absorbed some of my neurotic perfectionistic tendencies. And that evening, the unthinkable happened.

I cheerfully told Eva to practice her violin, ("Practice your violin RIGHT NOW!") while I helped the other children get dressed for bed upstairs. A few minutes later, as I was fighting with Gorby to get out of the bath, I heard a loud sobbing coming from the girls' room. "What is that?" I asked.

"Eva's crying," Zsa Zsa said, "in her bed."

At this point, I immediately knew that something had happened that involved breakage/spillage/general household destruction. I sauntered in to her room and found poor Eva under the covers sobbing hysterically, face red and puffy.

"So, Eva," I said, "Sweetie, what is it?"
"I can't tell you, I can't tell you. You are going to scream at me."
"Me? Scream?" I asked (HAHAHAHAHAHA!)
"It's OK, honey, it can't be that bad, just tell Mommy, I promise I won't yell, OK?"
"No I CAN'T I CAN'T I CAN'T TELLYOU!" sob sob sob

At this point, I was SURE that she had dropped her violin. This did not upset me too much because a) it's insured; and b) she has a 500 hour long recital on Sunday and I was not too distressed at the prospect of sitting that one out. So I kept on gently prodding with my calm demeanor waiting for her to confess to breaking her violin. I was SO SURE that was the cause of the hysteria that when she finally said, "I wrote on your new couch," I felt faint and almost fell on the floor.

You see, after my super-intense remodeling project involving my family room over the summer, I finally have a beautiful room with a beautiful wheat-covered microsuede couch, which I bought in a moment of insanity when I forgot I own four children. However, thus far, because of fear of death/dismemberment/disownment, the kids have been excellent at following the "No food in my new room" rule, but sometimes forget about the "No ink anywhere NEAR my new room" rule.

I ran downstairs and saw a HUGE LINE OF INK right across the center cushion of my couch. I ran for my special couch cushion cleaner and, ignoring the cancer/stroke/bleeding warnings on the bottle, got to work. You see, my Daddy has taught me to always have supplies at the ready for any emergency involving carpet/fabrics/furniture. And, phew, after some tense minutes, the ink came out.

And by the time I went back upstairs to check on Eva's mental state, she seemed to have forgotten about the whole thing. Which, to be honest, ticked me off a little bit. I mean, there was no groveling apology, no promises to never do it again. And yes, Mother, you would say, "It's just a couch. Everyone's happy and healthy (never mind the unknown organ damage I caused myself with the fabric cleaner), you are lucky you have a couch, etc etc." However, it really isn't "just a couch," it's my gorgeous wheat-colored microsuede couch in my brand new gorgeous family room, so if anyone gets any kind of ink anywhere near it ever again, I will send them directly to you and let them write on your couch. And, yes, next time, I will buy a darker couch.