Unbelievable

We woke up Saturday morning to a really snowy day.  I divided our last drops of 2% milk between the three boys so that their cereal was almost wet.

"Can I have some more milk, please?" Cole asked.

I told him we didn't have any.  We were out.

"Can I just have some girl milk, then?"  he asked.  (That's what they call skim milk.  I'm the only girl and I'm the only one that drinks it.  I haven't corrected them.)

I told him we didn't have any of that, either.  We were totally out of milk.

"When are we going to the store, then?" he asked.  I figured we'd go later, when they scraped the roads.

We went sledding and came home for lunch.  The roads were still not scraped.  My youngest son didn't feel good.  Kris was out of the state for the weekend.  We weren't going to the store.

"Can I have a cup of milk, please?" Ty asked at lunch.  I told him there wasn't any. 

"Any at all?" he pressed.

(Like I'm hiding milk.  Of course, I hide some food from them, but this is milk.)

"I know!" I said.  "What kind of farmers are we?!" 

They joked around about getting milk right from the parlor.  I reminded them that's how we got milk when I was growing up.  They thought that wouldn't be great because it would be warm. 

The rest of the day I realized how much they ask for milk, because I had to say no so many times.

This morning, the boys got up to eat breakfast and Cole poured himself some cereal.  I said, "That cereal's really messy to eat dry.  Do you want some yogurt on it?" 

He laughed and said, "No, I want milk."

"We don't have any milk, remember?" I said.

Three sets of eyes fixed on me with total disbelief.  I tried not to laugh.

I didn't think it was that big of a deal, but ... yes, they eat cereal with milk on it every morning.  This had actually never happened before.  We'd never run out of milk and not had it for two days.  But they didn't think it was just an inconvenience - they were actually alarmed.

Cole stopped pouring.  "When are we going to the store?  Right now?  Can we go now?" 

They still hadn't scraped the roads, but we just went slow.  We bought a cartful of groceries and three gallons of milk. 

They must have felt like they were at a deficit, because the three of them finished a gallon of one of the 'boy' milks today. 

When Ty asked for another cup of milk I said, "Yes - because we went to the store!"

He said, "Yay!  Now we're real farmers again!"

Oh, so it wasn't just that we didn't have milk to drink.  To him, we'd lost all credibility.