The countertop didn’t disappear all at once.
It was a slow burn.
A peanut butter smear here.
Crumbs gathering like tiny rebellions there.
Every morning, I’d enter the kitchen and feel my jaw tighten—
that subtle, invisible clenching of motherhood.
We had eight kids that year.
Eight.
Not because we planned for it.
But because when their siblings aged out of foster care and had nowhere else to go,
they came to us.
Our kitchen became a transit station for grief,
trauma,
and half-finished ramen noodles.
It was a miracle we had spoons.
Actually… we didn’t.
First, it was the spoons.
Then bowls.
Then plates.
One by one, they vanished.
I suspected they were either tossed in the trash
or slowly migrating to the homes of our kids’ family members during visits.
But in a house with eight kids, that wasn’t the battle I was going to fight.
Until one night, I made a giant pot of spaghetti—
only to discover we had nothing to serve it on.
No spoons.
No plates.
Nothing.
So we served dinner out of old takeout containers.
Used the lid of a pot as a plate.
Someone grabbed a frisbee.
Another drank milk from a flower vase.
I stared at the whole scene and thought,
“Well. Good enough.”
We got through it—because that’s what we do.
And while the disappearing dishes frustrated me,
they weren’t what pushed me over the edge.
That honor belonged to the countertop.
I had rules—simple ones.
Keep your room clean.
Do your own laundry.
Be kind to each other.
Clean up after yourself.
That last one?
Apparently, the hill I would die on.
Because every morning I’d walk in and find it:
crusty crumbs, jelly smears, and what I can only describe as “toast residue.”
It wasn’t just a mess.
It was defiance.
It felt personal.
So I made a sign:
“If you don’t clean up the crumbs, the counter’s going away.”
The next day, I walked into the kitchen.
Same mess.
Same crumbs.
Same sticky jelly.
So I lifted the whole damn thing.
Opened the front door.
And chucked it onto the lawn—
like it needed a time-out.
That night, one of the kids came home, looked around, and said:
“You good, Mom?”
Nope.
We had just lost the last inch of patience holding this household together.
For weeks, we lived without a counter.
Each kid got one dish and one cup—labeled with their name.
No one complained.
They mixed cereal on their laps.
Propped cutting boards on overturned laundry baskets.
And honestly? They adapted.
Eventually, we reattached the countertop.
A little more worn.
With a long crack down the middle.
Kind of like the rest of us.
These days, the kitchen is quieter.
The kids are older.
Many have moved on.
But every once in a while,
when I wipe down the counter after a long day,
I run my hand across that crack and smile.
Because that year nearly broke us.
But it also rebuilt us—
into something stronger, messier, and more real. And that counter?
It still holds more than dishes.
It holds the stories of a lot of amazing kids,
a kitchen full of chaos,
and the kind of love that survives both lost spoons
and the battlefield of crumbs.
Written by ABCFOC parent, Tara Collins Brent for A Better Chance for Our Children’s Unplugged Parenting Series, 2025.