Let me buy my bananas, old people.

Andy went away for the weekend, which meant lots of quality time for the boy and me. The weather was so perfect, it would've been a crime to stay inside. After feeding Fletch the leftover chicken casserole for lunch, we played at the park, where he was more interested in the wood chips, grass, and sidewalk than the actual toys. Then I got a sandwich, and finally we went to Pick 'n Save for a few groceries.

I stopped at produce first for bananas, which happen to be the easiest and cheapest food ever to feed him. Then we headed toward the baby food aisle.

Now, Fletch is pretty cute. He gets a lot of attention when we go out. It's especially conspicuous when I'm pushing a stroller through the grocery store instead of a cart. So the few glances we got from strangers were not unusual.

In the baby food aisle, I had to stand around pretending to be interested in greeting cards because a woman was taking up half the aisle, and the other half was blocked by a display. I even read a few cards in an effort not to rush her.

The woman was speaking to her son in Spanish and taking her sweet time with the jars of Gerber. I finally noticed that she also was shooting sidelong looks at my son.

Yeah, lady, we're waiting for you.

It took long enough that I decided to offer Fletch his cup of water. Umm... yeah. It was easy to see the reason he was garnering attention. I don't think you can call it "spit up" when the slime stuck to his shirt, shorts, and stroller actually contains whole noodles. I think we're in vomit territory then.

So I got busy checking the floor and greeting cards for signs of projectile, and he's smiling away at me, and heaven only knows what was being said in Spanish behind me.  Probably, "Asqueroso."

Have you ever tried to take a puke-covered pullover shirt off a toddler who has a big head and a lot of hair? In a Pick 'n Save?? Mere hours after I had washed his hair??? It required much care.

Sometime during Fletcher's public undressing, my Spanish friend disappeared, but it was too late now. I had a stroller full of partially digested puke noodles and a half naked toddler, I wasn't going to bother with shopping. I took my bananas to the checkouts.

When you have only one item, of course, that's when every lane is full and all four self-checkouts have been hijacked by the slowest, most technologically impaired folks you'll ever find. Not only that, they were the folks most likely to stare at and judge the mother of a half-naked toddler in public. LET ME BUY MY BANANAS, OLD PEOPLE, AND YOU'LL NEVER SEE ME AGAIN.

Lesson: My son is cute, but sometimes people stare for other reasons.

Chef Boyardon't

I go home on my lunch break to test just how short one hour can be.

Take 20 minutes off for driving there and back.

Take 10 minutes off for helping to get Fletcher changed into a fresh diaper and outfit, and playing.

Take 10 minutes off for preparing my lunch and Fletcher's lunch, attempting to feed us both, and staining us both with Chef Boyardee's Red Sauce From Hell (or RSFH, if you will). I wipe it up and turn away to try to put a spoonful of food in my mouth, and Fletcher picks up his bowl and dumps it all in his lap.

Take 6 minutes off for changing his outfit and wiping the stains into his feeding chair and the rug under the table.

Take 3 minutes off for helping Fletch drink his milk.

Take 10 minutes off for Fletcher spitting up the RSFH while he's running across our living room, and we get busy wiping the stains into the carpet.

In the last minute, I get to say goodbye to a little boy who knows I'm leaving, who doesn't want to let go of me, who throws a fit if I set him down. During this last minute, Andy's doing what he can to clean the rug, the carpet, and whatever else was hit with the RSFH. And he's asking me why I'm not leaving.

When I walk out the door, it all stays with me. I don't take a "break" and leave parenting behind me for the afternoon. If those 60 little minutes were stressful, you can believe the rest of the day will be. I can't stop hearing his tantrum voice and wishing I were there to help clean up the mess.

Instead, I'm at work, where a slew of tasks waits. I'm here, with stained pants and an almost empty stomach, shirking responsibility for two minutes so that I can write this. It feels as though everything I want to do – personally, professionally – is all compounding on me as every moment passes, and it is too overwhelming to manage.

As I pick up my professional to-do list and my stomach rumbles, I'm wondering how hungry Fletcher is, and what his daddy will feed him while I'm away.

I'm guessing it won't be Chef Boyardee.