I have been wanting to do this for a while…  Over at San Diego Momma, she does a writing exercise each week where she gives a creative writing prompt, then you write something off the cuff.  This week’s prompt is Use in a story/poem: A skein of red yarn, a comb, and a bottle of water.  Okay, so here goes…

She collapsed into the big comfy chair in the living room, if only for a moment.  There was plenty to do, and she felt a pang of guilt that she wasn’t cleaning the dishes in the sink.  It wouldn’t be so bad if they were just the breakfast dishes, but the counter was covered with last night’s dinner dishes and pans as well.  She reached over and grabbed the remote control off of the table and turned down the blaring cartoons that seemed to run 24 hours a day at full volume.  “Why?” she wondered “Do children need to have the TV up so loud?”  As she turned down the volume, she could hear her son in the front room playing with the pool table.  “Crack” went the balls, followed by an enthusiastic “Woo hoo!” or a deflated “Awe, man!”.  She closed her eyes, but was cautious not to let herself relax too much, sleep deprivation has a powerful way of making sleep sneak up on you.  Suddenly she bolted upright as her bottle of cold water slipped from her hand and poured half of its contents into her lap.  She squealed, frustrated with herself for being so clumsy.  Then it hit her, she had fallen asleep!  Her heart was beating double time as she looked at the clock to see how long she had fallen asleep.  Luckily the clock was kind and she breathed a sigh of relief as she realized that only 5 minutes had passed.  “Whew, that was close”.  She listened to the sound of pool balls crashing, but realized that there was no other sounds.  What was the toddler up to?  Quiet children typically means that they are up to something.  She quickly got up and started walking through the house only to find that her daughter Mara was sitting with her half-finished afghan on top of her head.  Her first reaction was to get angry since she had struggled for two months to get half of the afghan done.  But before she had time to react to the three skeins of red yarn strewn around the dining room, she discovered what little Mara was doing.  She was combing the afghan on her head as if it were long flowing hair.  She remembered pretending to have long hair when she was a little girl.  Instead of getting angry, she slipped into the other room and grabbed her camera to capture the moment.  Who would have known that a moment of anger in the height of exhaustion would have turned into such a precious memory that was captured on film.