I Just Wanted to Buy a Couch
Words by Megan Vos
I just wanted to buy a couch. And yet, this was our second attempt, and we couldn’t seem to manage it. Our couches have seen two pets and two children. They have been vomited on, spilled on (mostly by me), survived the many months-long phase when my younger daughter only ate squeeze yogurt tubes, and scrubbed clean with varying degrees of success. And finally, my husband and I decided it was time to upgrade. Our kids are five and eight, not old, but not babies anymore. And now that we’ve decided to bid farewell to the couches that got us through the grimy toddler years, I cringe every time I sit on one of them.
We were so close to buying one the first time we looked. We braved the mall on Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, lured by the promise of sales. We sat on multiple couches at three stores, and the girls didn’t break anything while they waited. We had almost selected one, a deep sectional that you don’t so much sit on as melt into, when we had second thoughts about which one to get. We decided to think about it for another day, and then the sales ended. We resigned ourselves to buying one on Presidents’ Day weekend instead.
It was a gorgeous Saturday and, aside from their colds, the girls were in a good mood. We went to my eight-year-old’s piano lesson, ate tacos at our favorite Mexican place, and caught the last Saturday of ice skating at the small town rink, which played oldies on the radio and rented rickety ice skates reminiscent of those at the roller rink of my youth. It was one of those days when I thought, “Wow. This is what I imagined parenthood would be like before having kids.”
And then, suddenly, our idyllic Saturday took a turn for the worst. We gave the girls their requisite “Five minutes until it’s time to go” warning, and then another when the timer went off and they weren’t quite ready. When we decided it was truly time to go, our eight-year-old took off her skates without arguing, but our five-year-old got “the look.” A glimmer in her eye. A small expression of defiance that means one thing: hell no!
As I helped our older daughter with her skates, my husband took off after our rogue skater, who, despite not being able to skate without assistance, was making a serious attempt at escaping across the ice. He hauled her off the ice, which was no small feat. We got her skates off and she ran up onto the stage of the pavilion, face screwed up, cheeks red. “I DON’T WANT TO GO!” she yelled. We waited her out. We told her matter-of-factly that even though skating was fun, we needed to go to the mall now. We tried bribing her with her beloved bunny gummies, and even that was a no-go. When she kicked me as I tried to shove her boots on her feet, I gave an audible exhale, and marched her out in her socks, fuming. I hurried her the half block to our car, ignoring the fact that she was dragging her good ski socks through puddles of melting snow.
I don’t know why I imagined that tantrums would end by the time my children turned five, but for both girls, five has been an inflexible and explosive age, and we are only two months into it with my younger daughter. Every time she starts to protest, I feel a sense of dread, knowing what’s coming. “Let’s just go home,” my husband muttered once we got to the car.
And the five-year-old inside me felt like having a tantrum then, too. Because honestly, this is what it’s like to be a mom. You make plans, only half confident that they’ll pan out. You feel the entire range of human emotion in the span of two minutes. One moment you’re skating along, half watching your children, half reminiscing about watching Dirty Dancing a billion times during high school as the soundtrack plays. Your children shriek with laughter as your husband whips them across the ice on sleds meant for toddlers. The next, you are dragging a child down the sidewalk as she yells in protest, mumbling obscenities under your breath, which your child will repeat later. You have a picture in your mind of your family snuggled up together the next morning on a new, clean, never urinated on couch. In reality, you wake up after a night of bad sleep, one child in your bed, one cat taking up most of your side. You step on an Elsa lego on your way to the couch you deem the least disgusting the next morning.
But your coffee is hot, your journal is open, and in the pre-dawn hours, when everyone is still asleep, you can hope that maybe, just maybe, today will be the day when you finally buy a new couch.
About the Author:
Megan is a writer, mom, and producer who lives in Boulder, CO. A New Hampshire native, she moved to Colorado on a whim fifteen years ago and never left. Megan produces Listen to Your Mother, an annual live show featuring local writers’ original stories about motherhood, and writes creative nonfiction.
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