Insurance

Wednesday afternoon I made a double batch of chocolate chip cookies. I nibbled on the dough a bit, because know what? I can. I am the mommy now and I don't have to ask to lick the beaters. Or share them. I baked up six or seven dozen, I'm not sure, I lost count. Last night, Thursday night, while all of the children were sleeping soundly in their beds, I opened the container and pulled out the last three cookies. I looked at them sitting next to my glass of cold milk and I faced a huge decision. Should I eat all three? I promise if there were five or even seven, I would have asked the same question. Should I eat them all? But my mother's intuition kicked in. I ate two and bagged up the last one to be stashed in a secret place. In a place where no one would find it except me. Because I knew.

What did I know? I knew that today was no school. I knew that all the kids can't possibly be on their best behavior all at once. I knew that they would start bickering about things such as whether or not "one, two, skip a few, ninety-nine, one hundred" is a legitimate way to count to 100. I knew that sometime in the middle of the afternoon, my body would start screaming for a chocolate chip cookie and I would become desperate. I knew that I would need a little nest egg. One little cookie. My secret hoard. And it is so worth it.