And the silicon chip inside her head…

Boomtown Rats, I don\’t like Mondays

Mondays are always brutal. Work, food shopping, laundry, errands, cleaning and planning for the week, catching up on reading. My daughter is with her father Sunday and Monday so those two days are both catch up and get ahead days. And if I’m lucky, I can squeeze in a dinner and film with friends. If I’m a good mommy and do my chores, the week goes smoothly and I can bake and prance and “make art” with my daughter till her heart’s content. If I’m naughty, we both suffer as I struggle to juggle life and all its demands. So I have learned my lesson and happily spend a good part of Monday organizing and planning.

Laundry and cleaning are endless tasks. I have learned to put away all folded laundry because if I don’t, as soon as my daughter sees it, up it goes into the air. A very charming habit but having clean clothes strewn around the house kind of defeats the purpose of clean clothes! As for cleaning, it is easier and faster without the help of my little assistant, though I do save some tasks for her. She loves to rinse the bathtub with the removable shower head and spray mommy. And then there is the food shopping and menu planning for the week. Always an enjoyable activity.

I am Mexican so beans play a very important part in my diet. As the youngest in a family of eight I grew up eating beans twice a day. As I look back, many of the meals my mother prepared that I always thought were weirdly funny, I now realize where her attempt to fill the bellies of a household of ten on a factory workers salary. She always served enchiladas with spaghetti and beans, lasagna with beans, eggs scrambled with green beans and beans, eggs in a red chile sauce and beans, nopales and potatoes with beans… beans beans beans. And my all time favorite, bean tacos! Beans are delicious, nutritious, versatile, and a variety is commonly on offer at your local grocery store. In fact, on my wedding day, my mother gave me a set of bean pots in assorted sizes. So on Mondays the first thing I do when I get home from work and errands is to cook a pot of beans. Once cooked and stored in the refrigerator, they can quickly be heated for a bean and cheese burrito, scrambled with eggs, or served plain to my hungry girl while I make dinner.

And lastly, I make paper cutouts of snakes, turtles, birds, and cats from brown shopping bags. It will be raining all week and indoor activities are an absolute must. So I am prepared for finger painting and “making art.”