The best mother's day mama could ever dream of.

The best mother's day gift mama could ever dream of.

I can't write much, because I'm working on a deadline, but I just went through to the kitchen and ERIK HAS CLEANED ALL THE DISHES AND CLEANED THE COUNTERTOPS. Let me give you a little backstory.

Two people love each other very much and have a baby and live in a charming house with no dishwasher. Baby is hard work. Housework suffers. One person puts in 12 hour days (well, 9 hour days + 3 hours of train riding). Other person edits (interesting! but time-consuming!) dissertations whenever the baby is asleep. Two people also watch the Twin Peaks DVD box set whenever possible; I'm just throwing that in there so you don't think I'm a robot. Dishes, they pile. Pile pile pile. Charming house is less charming with no dishwasher. Craigslist is stalked for dishwashers. Dishes are pile-ier. Take-out is purchased. Rinse. Repeat. Comb in conditioner.

You're probably thinking, "oh, so what. He did a load of dishes? Whatever." No, my friends. Our cabinets were empty. Empty! Empty, because there were no clean dishes to put in them. Because they were all piled not only next to the sink, but on almost every inch of countertop space. I don't think anyone can really understand except for Lorien, who unassumingly stepped foot into the dish carnage yesterday. (Thank you for the cough pellets!) Don't try and pretend that it wasn't so bad in there.

I had originally intended to have a dreamy, sappy mother's day post wherein I waxed and waned on and on about sweet wee Oliver and how nothing is cuter than a slightly chubby baby scrunching over so that he can peek at and poke at his own belly button, but instead we get a dishwashing post. Happy Mother's Day '08! Clean dishes!