Au Revoir husband!
Bonjour misery!
I prepared my lunch for work the night before.
I woke up at 5:30 a.m.
I was ready to leave by 6 a.m.
The kids were ready to leave by 6:30 a.m.
All of this was the case, yet I still managed to arrive at work a whopping 45 minutes late!
Loading the kids into the car:
Alma demands to “squeeze through” her brother’s side to get to her carseat.
Huck starts whining and fighting me because I won’t let him buckle the belt by himself.
Alma is refusing to sit down so I can buckle her because she needs me to lay the bottom buckle FLAT before she can sit down.
On the way to daycare:
I hit an intersection near the high school where a cop is directing traffic. By directing traffic, I mean letting EVERYBODY but me go.
How is that more effective than an accurately timed light? Now, some of us get shafted and others arrive early and it’s all determined by one pudgy dude with a badge.
After sitting for maybe 15 minutes, he waves me through with a smile. (asshole)
At daycare:
Alma wants to take multiple sips of her Orange Juice before getting out of the car.
Huck is outraged because I won’t let him UNbuckle the belt.
He starts screaming as I drag him toward the building.
Alma starts screaming because I’m not holding her hand as we walk the four steps from my car to the sidewalk. (I couldn’t because I was carrying her backpack.)
I march them bawling, into a room full of perfectly well-behaved children. The daycare worker swings around and shoots me an evil glare as I run to put the kid’s backpacks on their hooks.
Then Huck’s crying becomes more plaintive. Apparently, HE is supposed to hang his backpack up.
Alma has tears streaming down her cheeks and is hiccuping air, incapable of even explaining why she’s so upset.
Back on the road:
4-way stops where no one has a clue whose turn it is to GO. School zones. School buses picking up kids. Uneven lanes and construction.
Voila! 45 minutes late.
It’s not like I have a job where EVERY single second LITERALLY counts. (I do. Google “backtiming.”)
I spill an entire cup of crappy office coffee on my desk. (and my purse)
I have to leave early to get to the daycare before they close and start charging PER MINUTE.
At least I get to see their shining smiles when I pick them up, until my son starts chanting “I want daddy!” at home.
One of the only upsides to a husband out of town is the chance to consume enough garlic to ward off vampires states away.
I made sure to buy garlic on my lunch break and came home to find the last onion is gone. I only needed ONE onion. There is no way I’m schlepping the kids in their pajamas to Target for a damn onion.
In the morning, I once again have to drag my sleeping children from their beds. Unless they’re tending to the crops, it seems so wrong to wake up toddlers before dawn.
I’m prying pj’s off kids practically in comas. I feel like a date rapist.
I’m hoisting their limp bodies up to the sink to brush their teeth like a scene from Weekend at Bernie’s.
They can’t hit a snooze button, so they tend to hit me.
The worst part? We spend all week setting their little internal alarm clocks so Saturday morning they inevitably wake up at the crack of dawn.
But, look how cute they are, RIGHT?
Day 2:
We sat outside in the blistering heat so the kids could water paint.
We tormented a poor skink that was hanging out on the patio by chasing it back and forth to try and get a good look at it.
My children transformed into sloths during dinnertime.
They waded their way through the food on their plates like it was tar or quicksand.
Before bedtime, my son started to whip my arm with a pink rubber lizard and when I snatched it from him, the arm ripped off. The arm is now stuck on his wall.
At bedtime the kids took turns shouting “mommy” for no apparent reason for about an hour.
I took a day off from work the next day, so Huck decided it would be AWESOME to still wake up at 6 a.m.
He also burst into real tears when I left him at day care.
It didn’t take long to get over the guilt and have the MOST AMAZING DAY EVER.
I planted flowers, hit my favorite used book store, went to the beach, got a Coke Slurpee, got food from my favorite Mexican restaurant and watched Scandal.
I can safely say that if I hadn’t taken that day in-between I would’ve suffered a nervous breakdown by now.
Day 3:
The kids were total champs about dinner. They ate all of their ravioli and in a timely fashion. They even drank… drum roll… WATER!
I figured it was going to be an amazing night, but then bath time rolled around.
Alma is sitting on her brother in the tub, ridiculing his private parts, splashing me and then crying because she wants me to wrap her like a baby in her towel.
Then she actually starts whipping me with the towel. Not full-on locker room whipping, but she did nail me good one time in the eye. She responded with a sarcastic “SOOOORRRY.”
Alma transforming into a she-devil.
God bless my little hero, Huxley. He shouted, “No, Alma! Don’t be mean to mommy!!”
No such luck kiddo.
She was a nightmare to put to sleep. She wanted to color with markers and when she discovered the paper wrapper had fallen off of one of them she accused me (with attitude) of doing it on purpose.
She said condescendingly, “When the paper falls off, then you don’t give me THAT marker.”
I said, “I’m not doing anything for anyone who talks to me that way. Get this straight little girl, I’m your mom and you can’t talk to me like that.”
Lotta good that did. Little snot stayed up until 9:20 p.m. no matter what I did.
She’d rather color in the dark like some kind of f*&king vampire than go to sleep.
I still need to take a little time to unwind after the screaming and crying dies down, so I end up staying up way too late.
Then Huck wakes up at 5 a.m.
ALMA picked out her outfit the night before, but suddenly in the morning acts astonished that I would choose such hideous attire and forces me to dress her in the EXACT same outfit she wore two days before, including the sweater she demands to wear “because she’s cold” when it’s 90 degrees outside. I washed it, but still… nobody else knows that.
Huck is crying “No way mommy!” over and over because I won’t take him downstairs while I get Alma ready. (Which is because the day before, I took him downstairs and he cried because he was alone down there while I got Alma ready)
He cried, “I want daddy.”
Guess what? I want daddy too.
And when daddy comes home I am going to put a shock collar on him and if he ever tries to go out of town I’m gonna zap his ass.
SPECIAL NOTE: I want to give a special shout out to Olaf, Elsa, Anna, Kristoff, Sven (or “Spen” as my daughter pronounces it) and even Prince Hans. Without them this week would not be possible. For all of you Frozen haters, this movie is the only way I have been able to do laundry, tidy the house or even bathe. I love you, Frozen.
Living The American Scream 