At 1 in the morning, I awake to my daughter screaming for “mommy.” I turn to my husband and ask in sleepdrunken stupor, “which kid is that?”
He says, “It doesn’t matter, just go.”
I find her wide-eyed in bed. She says, “something pulled my arm.”
I said, “Like your arm got stuck on something?”
She says, “No, something grabbed my arm and pulled me.”
She says she’s too scared to sleep in her bed because it might grab her and pull her again.
A normal mommy would react in the following possible ways:
1) “Honey, you must’ve just had a bad dream. Nothing grabbed your arm.” (and then probably sing “Hush Little Baby”)
2) “Baby, your pajamas are just too tight.” (She insists on wearing flannel Minnie Mouse pajamas in Florida in March that are a size 24 months… and she’s 3)
In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I am not a normal mommy. I immediately feel a shiver of chills and start imaging evil spirits grabbing my daughter by her elbow to pull her away.
It would explain why she always seems possessed. In my drowsy state, I am unable to process what she has told me and probably look as creeped out as she is.
So, I take her into our bed with her pillow, bunny and blanket.
Within 2 minutes she is kicking me repeatedly.
She says the blanket is making her itch.
Then she says she needs water.
Then she says she spilled the water.
Then she says there is something in her eye. Specifically something black. I think that is what we call “night” or “darkness.”
My husband shouts that she needs to stop talking and she starts to cry harder about the imaginary thing in her eye.
Alma and I relocate to the couch where she yells at me that my legs are too long.
Finally I take her back to bed where she shrieks like she’s being assaulted.
Eventually, her wails are intermittently interrupted with mumbles of “I have to potty” “I have to potty.”
So, we attend to that business.
I finally get her to go back to sleep in her room with her ghost.
The it takes me another hour to fall back asleep.
At this point, we’re getting about as much sleep as a typical parent of a 3 month old. Everybody expects that mom to be exhausted and cranky.
So, do I get a pass? Can I drool on my desk and tell someone to F-off and blame it on my shitty night of sleep?
Maybe tonight will be better. Unless the grabby banshee goes for my son.
In which case, we’re gonna go to that exorcist I just heard about in Lakeland.
Our daycare sends home little sheets of paper that tell us how our children did that day at school. It includes whether they slept, ate and what their mood was. Usually it says “happy” or “cranky” or “seems sick.”
The other day Huxley came home with one that said, “Aggressive toward friends. Hitting, kicking, pushing.”
He just turned 2 and he’s already gotten a bad report card??
I’m just curious what the teachers think this accomplishes for a family like mine. I work such long hours and my commute sucks so hard that my kids are at school for up to 11 hours a day. So, how am I supposed to correct my son’s bad behavior?
Isn’t it just really a way to grade the parent?
“Your kid is a dick. You get an F!”
I am contemplating sending back my own report cards.
“My kid came home with so much crusted snot he can barely breathe. You get a C-.”
“My daughter came home with stamps all over her arms that made her look like a UFC fighter on a losing streak. You get a D.”
“You gave my kid a cupcake right before I came to pick her up. F! F! F!”
All of this being said, they’re practically raising my kid for a minimum wage, which makes me sick on so many levels.
And Huck is being aggressive.
Last night he threw a pink ball and hit Alma right in the head while she was eating dinner. She was mid-chew and began bawling with chunks of white rice falling from her mouth. We told him to say sorry and he said, “No way!”
He’s always been good about apologizing. I even have success forcing them to “hug it out.”
Not this time. He got time out because he refused to say sorry. So, he sat in his room shrieking for ten minutes.
“Are you ready to say sorry yet, Huck?”
“No.” (continues sobbing uncontrollably as he is placed back in time out)
Ten minutes later, we do it all over again.
This went on for an hour. By this point he’s doing that weird hiccuping cry, the ugly one we try so hard to avoid as grownups.
I gave him a bath, calmed him down and once he was in his pajamas requested he apologize again. I explained that even if it was an accident, he hurt Alma and should say he’s sorry. He walked over and said, “Sorry Alma” and they hugged. Alma even told him it was okay.
I thought I couldn’t get any prouder, but then Alma turned to me and said, “thank you, mommy.”
I asked, “What for?”
She said, “Doing all of this for us.”
I don’t know if she even knew what she meant, but it melted my heart. I may even give myself a C on my report card today.
It was a huge weekend, anticipated for weeks.
Nana was coming to visit.
I asked Alma repeatedly what she wanted to do with Nana when she came to stay with us for a couple of days. She said “she’ll give me bunny ears.”
The chick has a memory like an elephant. (What exactly is it that elephants remember? That their life is boring? That bathing is still unnecessary although you smell that foul?)
She actually remembers that Nana gave her and Huck bunny ears around this time last year for Easter. She was 2 then.
A Nana visit means great anticipation.
Not for Alma. She has to be reminded about how many days are left. She still thinks anytime after today is “tomorrow.”
Huck has no concept of time, particularly when it comes to when it is appropriate to wake up screaming and demanding milk.
A Nana visit means I am counting down the days until I have a spare moment alone with my husband.
I count down the days until I can have a conversation with my mother that’s not over the phone and interrupted by her News Director looming over her at the top of the 5 o’clock newscast. (she also works in this Godforsaken business)
So, when I get the text message from my mother saying her flight has been delayed by an hour I immediately feel a lump swell up in my throat like a rock.
Then I get all weirdly hypochondriacal and convince myself the cramp in my calf is a blood clot and I am about to die without seeing my mom one last time and my children will grow up motherless and turn into drug addicts.
She still arrived in time to see the kids before they went to bed.
We still got to go to dinner.
It was probably just a leg cramp.
We had a wonderful visit with one exception. It’s those damn expectations that destroy everything.
We made plans to go to the beach on Sunday, just my mom and me and the kidlets. (My husband can feign feeling left out, but we all know he gets the best part of that deal)
We started by swinging by McDonald’s to get the kids something quick to eat. My mom totally freaked out while I was driving because Alma’s egg white was sliding out of her sandwich. Like… full on crisis mode.
Huck’s oatmeal was too hot and had chunks of fruit that could pose a choking hazard.
So, we ended up sitting in the Target parking lot waiting for an eternity for the kids to finish their food.
I think my mother underestimated just how long it takes my daughter to consume even a small portion of food. Even without television to distract her, each individual bite comes with a 3-4 minutes pause in between. It’s like she has to digest each morsel before moving on to the next.
So, we eventually make it inside the Target where I spend the college funds we were never going to start buying a bunch of crap for the beach.
Got a cooler, umbrella, weird screw shaped thingie to get the umbrella into the ground, sunscreen (which is ridiculously expensive… and is probably just lotion with ZERO SPF… and we’re all gonna die of cancer anyway) and fruit, cheese and juice.
Oh, and Minnie Mouse flip flops because Alma refused to leave the house without wearing her pink cowgirl boots.
We find parking at the beach despite it being Spring Break. I wait in line at the parking pay station for some dipshit with a million quarters to pay. Seriously, are you really going to stay at the beach until TOMORROW?
That dipshit is followed by another dipshit who doesn’t understand which buttons to push.
That dipshit is followed by another dipshit who doesn’t remember what their parking space number was. So, they just keep trying endless combinations like they’re trying to crack a safe filled with cash.
Finally, we pay and start to load up our gear. We managed to find a way to carry all of our crap, without realizing that we also have to schlep two small human beings across a busy parking lot.
Like two pack mules with midgets, we wobble across the boardwalk to the beach.
On the other side, we’re immediately slammed in the face by gale force winds, pelted by sheets of sand. The kids burst into tears simultaneously, cowering and grabbing at the beach chairs I’m holding. The strap is digging into my shoulder like a scythe.
Alma is screaming that her flip flops are digging into her feet.
But, we keep moving. There has been much to do about this beach day. The last cancellation of a beach day led to a wild tantrum by my daughter that could’ve gotten her Baker Acted.
We end up trying to set up shop behind a sand dune, but we were being sandblasted. The kids were terrified. It was Lawrence of Arabia dermabrasion for babies.
So, we find a way to gather up our enormous haul and drag the screaming kids back to the car.
Poor things had sand in their eyes.
My mother and I were chewing grit for the rest of the day.
The inside of my purse could fill an hourglass and then some.
We ended up trying to salvage the day by heading to a park. I had to sit and watch our stuff because Lord knows that even in St. Pete some crackhead will steal your purse. My mother was watching the kids on the playground and had the revelation that it’s impossible to keep them both safe.
Alma is ideal for snatching and Huxley is hell-bent on playground suicide.
The wind was just as strong. Check out my kids speeding down a raceway. Or just sitting in a stationary car.
My mom had the genius idea of filling their buckets with ice from the cooler so they could play with it like sand. Note to self and to any Florida moms. Ice is cheap or free and won’t get stuck in anyone’s crevices.
This is the kind of afternoon that leads to what we refer to as the “cruise ship effect.” There is much consumption of alcohol followed by big evening plans that turn into an unusually early bedtime.
It’s like, “Let’s hit the midnight buffet! Yeah!” Then, you wake up drooling at 2:30am.
I actually caught my mom snoring during “The Road.” And she loves Viggo Yellow Rice Mortensen.
I had a great time, but it was no day at the beach.
The latest addition to my toddler’s lexicon, “No way!”
Huck squeezing the living daylights out of the toothpaste while yelling, “NO WAY!”
This morning he was berating me using many variations.
“NO WAY, NO!”
“No way, no mama!”
The funny thing is that all I was doing was asking if he wanted to go downstairs or go find daddy or sit on the bathroom counter. Apparently these questions made him IRATE.
I kind of want to start using this when anyone asks me to do something I don’t want to do.
“You need to add this story to your newscast.”
“NO WAY!”
“Would you like to come to my crap selling party and buy a bunch of stuff you don’t want so I can make money while you hang out with a bunch of other chicks I suckered into it?”
“NO WAY, NO!”
Facebook should add a No Way button.
Sports-related post. Self-aggrandizing post. Workout post. Please join my cause and contribute money to it post. I look better in a bikini than you post.
“NO WAY, NO WAY, NO WAY, NO WAY, NO WAY MAMA!”
Alma’s picture of herself (on the left) and Huxley on the right. She said we were drawing on “Ricin paper” instead of “construction paper.” Is she trying to poison me? Should I worry?
When I was growing up I had no desire whatsoever to have children.
I was one of those awkward people who didn’t even know how to smile appropriately at a baby.
I had big dreams of being a career-driven, serial monogamist in New York or Chicago.
I was oblivious to the existence of a biological clock until my Freshman year in college. What started it ticking? Those damn Baby Story shows on TLC. You could almost smell those sweet, powdery newborns.
Over the course of the next several years it was an upward trajectory toward parenthood.
You start picturing what your babies might look like.
Ticking.
Then you start picking names for your imaginary babies, usually horrible ones.
Ticking louder.
Then your friends actually start squeezing kids out and you suffer from baby envy.
TICKING LIKE TINNITUS.
You get married and then it becomes an obsession.
Every negative pregnancy test is a visual representation of your eggs shriveling up and turning black.
Every month that passes is a guarantee your child will have some horrible deformity or disability because you waited too long.
Your nightmares resemble the warning on the side of the Accutane box.
Then you get pregnant.
A whole different kind of clock starts ticking.
You spend the first three months anxiously awaiting the ‘safe time’ to break the news to your family, friends and work.
The next three months are waiting to find out the gender.
The next three are spent buying a billion things you will never actually end up using and clothes your child will stain and destroy upon the first wearing. They’re also spent being miserable and uncomfortable. You start to count every second.
Can you tell I’m miserable?
I’m not gonna lie. I ADORED being pregnant. That changed when I realized my baby was pressing up on my hiatal hernia, causing me to have perpetual acid reflux and difficulty swallowing.
Then you count contractions.
Baby is born! Woohoo! Your 6-pound-whatever-ounce reason to live has arrived.
Then you begin marking off your baby’s developmental progress, another way of tracking time.
You worry about whether they’re at the appropriate age to eat rice cereal, whether they’re already teething or just sick, whether they’re behind when it comes to taking those first steps, those first words, those first anythings.
Alma’s first steps
We happened to have two children in quick succession and then realized there was no way in hell we were ever going to have another. We hit the jackpot of crazy kids. Even my own mother recently confessed that both of my toddlers are “exceptionally difficult.” Not the kind of exceptional I was hoping for.
Then, something strange happens. There’s nothing to look forward to. There’s no tracking of time passing. There’s no marking anything off on a planner or calendar.
Now, you’re just supposed to live.
What? How do I do that?
The only internal clock I can find is the one that keeps telling me to bottle up whatever moments I have with my babies.
It’s counting down until they’re too big to sit on my lap, until they don’t call me “mommy” but “mom”, until they start dating and say they hate me.
Eventually, they will leave and I will be left where every parent ends up: crushed by the realization that my babies really aren’t babies anymore, but grownups about to embark on their own journey toward parenthood.
Now, my obsession with time is that I don’t have enough.
Every second slips away while I am stuck in traffic, folding laundry or working.
Don’t mean to talk badly of my profession, but there’s no denying that I would rather be exploring the great outdoors with my kids than writing about a guy accused of raping his pit bull.
Lately Alma has been trying to prove she’s “big enough” to do everything by herself. She’s big enough to get up to the potty by herself, wash her own hands and dress herself. If she tells me she doesn’t need me one more time, I’m going to burst into tears.
This is the beginning of the end.
My powdery fresh newborns are toddlers.
I will never cry tears of joy holding a tiny baby that is my own.
Shit, is this the sound of my real biological clock ticking?
I was born in the 80’s. I grew up in the 90’s. So, what the heck do you call the now’s?
Here’s a quick comparison of the quintessential 80’s toys I remember and what the kids are playing with these days.
1) Popples. Pointless, partially pink, nebulous creatures that you can whip into ball-shaped pink, nebulous creatures.
Today’s version: The Furby. Owl rapes hamster and gives birth to a creature that speaks a made up language so your child will learn absolutely nothing.
2) Tabletop Donkey Kong. Donkeys mysteriously find an endless stockpile of barrels in a jungle in order to thwart attacks by crocodiles.
Today’s version: Angry Birds. Use a slingshot to launch birds at pigs. Because that makes so much sense.
3) Cabbage Patch Dolls: Creepy, cuddly dolls that resemble the girl from Poltergeist and have hard heads that make them perfect weapons when battling big brothers.
Today’s version: Monster High Dolls: Slutty, zombie chicks that look like futuristic strippers. Won’t hurt brothers. Scare adults.
4) The Rubik’s Cube: Spend hours being frustrated so your parents can have some peace.
Today’s version: Leap Pad. Little battery-operated mind suck.
5) Roller Racer: Awkward death trap on wheels.
Today’s version: A Mercedes… for kids. Whose bright idea was this? I know, let’s give reckless, uncoordinated people who are 10 years from getting a license a much smaller, plastic car and let them hit the road.
6) Lite Brite: Most obvious choking and fire hazard ever marketed to children.
Today’s version: Anything made in China that could contain lead, which is everything made in China.
7) Barbie: Inhuman body type, white blonde hair and a permanently surprised look.
Today’s version: Inhuman body type, now available with pink hair and tattoos.
1) 12 Years a Slave: 12 sounds about right. That’s when you can start making kids do their own laundry and load the dishwasher, right?
The “What have I done?” expression Chiwetel Ejiofor’s will have after he has kids.
2) Dallas Buyers Club: I feel like Matthew Mcconaughey’s character.
“Stop right there! Don’t have kids!”
3) Amerian Hustle: I actually look like Christian Bale’s character.
“I’m not pregnant again, so what’s this?”
4) Frozen: My libido. We’ll thaw it out in a few years.
“See this? Nuh uh uh. Maybe when the kids are ready for sleepovers.”
5) Gravity: Where did all my friends go? Oh, wait… I had kids. It’s like being adrift in space.
6) I wore heels to work for the first time in many moons yesterday and bit it hard at the bottom of the stairs ala J-Law. Who needs a fancy gown and an oscar nom to throw yourself to the ground like an a-hole?
7) Ellen: With the current state of my hair growing out process, I look like her only not nearly as beautiful.
Who’s that guy she’s with? I thought she was gay!
8) Blue Jasmine: Didn’t see it, but read a description that included “a fragile socialite experiencing a meltdown.” Replace “socialite” with “working mom” and bingo.
9) I am just about as bad as Bradley Cooper at cutting heads off in selfies and Kevin Spacey could be my doppelganger in 95% of pictures I end up in.
10) Jared Leto. Along with every other woman in the world who tweeted this: I want your hair. Now.
Two thumbs up for deep conditioning!
Living The American Scream 