You know those days when you just can’t wait for it to end so you can enjoy the relaxing bliss that is that first glass of wine? Tuesday was one of those days.
Okay, fine -- so practically every day is one of those days. Don’t judge me.
It started when JAO announced that he really needed to catch up on some work and, therefore, would not be home until late. Uggh.
Whenever I know not to expect JAO home until late, the afternoon seems to stretch on endlessly. It’s not that I mind being around my children that long by myself, it’s just that -- okay, it is that I mind being around my children that long by myself. They seem to fight more and get on my nerves more when I am flying solo.
When both parents are present, the burden of parenting can be equally shared. One parent breaks up the first fight while the second parent gets the next dirty diaper. Parent One prepares the food while Parent Two wipes off the faces and hands -- and table, chairs and walls. Single parents have my utmost respect. How they do it without going all rifle-in-a-clock-tower is beyond me.
So, I began to formulate a plan: We would swim in the pool until they were ready to drop, then we’d enjoy a nutritious dinner of hot dogs and carrot sticks before retiring to the den for popcorn and Movie Night.
All seemed to be going according to plan; L and Z frolicked in the pool and I chatted with my friend on the phone while attempting to soak up some sun. Let’s face it, cellulite looks so much better when it is tan. I was just beginning to think I would survive my solo flight unharmed when the stench of pool poo filled my nostrils. That little (insert expletive here) pooped in the pool once again. It was mostly contained by the swim diaper and rubber pants that he was wearing, but I was still too grossed-out to allow L and Z to continue playing in the water. My plans for an afternoon in the pool were shot and so I was faced with the dubious task of entertaining these little people until bedtime.
After an hour of bickering and whining from all of us, I decided to bump up Movie Night. We watched “Charolette’s Web” and I was instantly reminded of why I had avoided seeing the film when it first came out. I cried like a freakin’ baby! Stupid spider.
When the movie ended, we still had time to kill before the nutritious hot dogs and carrot stick dinner. So I decided it was time to reattempt the removal of the splinter Z had in his foot. After all, it had been there since Sunday. JAO and I had tried to get it out the afternoon it happened, but to no avail. If you have never had the occasion to remove -- or attempt to remove -- a splinter from any part of a child’s body, let me help you understand the situation. It’s like an Olympic event. It involves strength, endurance and determination. Picture the Crocodile Hunter (God rest his soul) laying on top of a giant crock and wrestling it to the ground all the while trying to keep his limbs and extremities out of the flailing creature’s mouth. It’s kinda like that.
Our first attempt at the splinter removal involved JAO pinning Z down, L holding a flashlight and me wielding the tweezers. I couldn’t even get to the splinter because Z was wriggling and kicking and screaming. I looked at JAO and said, “What kind of a man are you? This kid weighs 35 pounds -- can’t you keep him still?” My husband replied, “Fine! You hold him then!”
People, that kid is strong. Especially when he doesn’t want to do something. We gave up after about 15 minutes when we were all too exhausted to continue.
This was no ordinary splinter, however. It was really a thin sliver of metal that had come off the rotary drill bit thingy JAO had used when he was repairing the grout on the pool. So, I knew it couldn’t stay in his foot for long. What if it became embedded and then infected and what if he then had to walk around with a piece of metal in his foot and constantly be stopped walking through metal detectors and having to explain that he wasn’t carrying a weapon but rather his foot contained a splinter that his weakling parents were unable to remove?
No, it had to come out.
As soon as he saw me coming with the tweezers, he freaked. I tried calm cajoling, I tried bribery, I tried threatening -- nothing would convince him to simply sit still and allow me to do what needed to be done. Finally I said, “screw it” and I laid my entire body over his and pinned him to the floor. He was on his stomach facing one way, and I was laying on his back facing his feet. Even in this position, he was still able to squirm and kick and flop around enough to hinder my efforts. He was screaming and shrieking and trying to bite my leg. Then he twisted his upper body enough so that he could start pounding his fist on my back. All the while, poor L is holding the flashlight and saying, “I don’t like this Mommy! This is scary!”
Another therapy session added to her list. And his.
At last the tweezers hit their target and the metal sliver came out. I released Z and sat up. He was so far beyond upset that he continued to furiously scream and cry. If he knew any curse words, I’m sure I would have heard a litany of expletives. He grabbed a shirt off the back of the couch, thrust it into his mouth and bit down on it in a rage.
I still had the metal shard in my hand and didn’t want to drop it on the floor lest anyone else step on it and we’d have to go through this all over again. So, as I was rising to properly dispose of the offending piece of metal, L reached out to her hysterical brother in an attempt to give him a calming hug. The next thing I saw was his foot flying through the air to land a kick squarely on his sister’s mouth.
Instantly, she let out a screech and blood started flowing from her mouth. She had bit down on her tongue -- hard. So, now I have two screaming kids, one bleeding and the other one crying to near convulsions and I’m still holding the metal splinter in my hand.
I quickly ushered L into the kitchen when I dropped the splinter on the counter and grabbed some paper towels to hold over her mouth. Z followed right behind us. His cries had progressed to the sniffling and whimpering and rapid intake of breaths that usually follows a major kid crying jag. Once I was sure I didn’t need to take L to the emergency room for tongue stitches, I sat down on the kitchen floor and held both my upset babies in my arms and rocked and shushed and tried to restore peace.
I even shed a tear or two.
In the end, everyone went to bed splinter and stiches free. Being a single parent sucks. And some days so does being a kid.
But at least the parent has the wine.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
The Talk
When I was young and thought my mother was crazy and out-of-touch, I promised myself and my future daughter that I would be a cool, laid-back, understanding mom. I’d be the kind of mom that my daughter’s friends would look at and say, “Wow, it is so stellar that your mom is, like, so totally awesome.” I was a child of the 80s. Back then, that was the hip way to talk.
But then I grew up. Well, kinda. And I have discovered that I don’t need to be L’s best friend and be a part of all the gossip and late-night talks about which boy is the cutest in class. I just want her to see me as someone she can come to with any problem or question and trust that I will give her an honest and direct answer.
I have struggled with this idea of truthfulness and how it extends (or doesn’t extend) to Santa, the Tooth Fairy and all those other harmless lies we tell our children. I play along, but will always fear that these untruths will taint my image as someone who can be trusted. But this past weekend, when my baby girl curled up on my lap, looked at me with those beautiful, blue, trusting eyes and very sincerely asked, “How does a baby come out of your stomach?” the last thing I wanted to do, was to give her an honest and direct answer.
I paused only slightly and then said, “Well, when it is time for the baby to be born, you go to the hospital and the doctor gets the baby out.” Ha! I did it! That was an honest and direct response that only answered the question asked. No need to elaborate, right?
Wrong.
“Yes, Mom, but how does the doctor get the baby out?”
Damn. Now what? Do I really want to get into this right now with a five-and-a-half-year-old? Is she old enough to know where babies come from? Of course, she’s not asking how the baby got there -- at least not yet. But, if I open up this discussion won’t it lead to The Talk?
Crap, she’s noticed how long I’ve been silent. Now any answer I give her will take on a magnified sense of importance simply because of the time it took to answer it. What if I tell her and then she goes and blabs it to all the other kids in preschool and I get angry phone calls from parents who weren’t even thinking about The Talk, but now must have it because obviously our household is one of sin and promiscuity and our daughter is a fountain of sexual knowledge?!
Okay, say something -- anything!
Speak, woman!
I know! Maybe she’ll accept the c-section explanation better and will be easier to comprehend. Okay, fine...go with that...
“Well, um, sometimes the doctor will have to get the baby out by opening up the mommy’s tummy. See, he makes a cut from here to here and -- ”
At this point, L burst into tears. Clearly, that was not the right direction to take.
I was hit with a litany of “I don’t want the doctor to cut open my tummy! I don’t want to have a baby! Don’t make me, okay Mommy! Promise I don’t ever have to have a baby!”
I was trying to calm her down and assure her that wasn’t a decision she had to make right now. The only way I could get out of that situation was to promise her that I was not going to make her have a baby now or any time in the future. That stopped the tears, but we both walked away from that encounter emotionally drained. And I felt like a huge failure. One of the first big moments in our relationship as trusting daughter/truthful mother was blown all to heck.
I spent the rest of the day worrying about it and trying to figure out how to rectify the situation. I simply couldn’t let her go on thinking that child birth was the horror show she was envisioning.
That night, before I tucked her in, I sat down on her bed beside her and said, “L, can we chat for just a minute about something?”
“Sure, Mom.”
“Well, you know how we talked this morning about how babies are born and you got so upset?”
“Yes. I cried and cried." She began to look concerned again and asked, "I don’t have to have a baby, do I?”
“No, honey," I replied. Then in a lighthearted manner I continued, "Look, L, there’s something else I need to tell you. See, there are two ways a baby can be born. One of them is for the doctor to open up the mommy’s tummy, but the other way is for it to come out from somewhere else.”
“Oh. Where?”
“Well, you know how our body has a lot of different holes, right? And each one is for something different; our nose is how we smell, and our mouth is how we eat, and our ears are how we hear. Well, you know that you have a hole in your hiney where the poo comes out -- ”
People, the disbelieving look on her face said, “Cheese and crackers! Lady, do not tell me that babies come out of your butt!”
Quickly I said, “And then there is your hoo-hoo. Babies come out of your hoo-hoo.”
Her response was to pause for a moment and then crack up laughing and say, “They come out of your hoo-hoo?! Ooooh, that is so gross!”
To which I replied, “Well, yes, it sorta is.”
(On a side note: I know that it is considered the progressive way of parenting to use the correct anatomical words for body parts. And we do use the correct words for everything but the hoo-hoo. I hate the V-word. It just sounds icky to me and I never use it. Perhaps it was all the years of being taunted with the horrible nickname Vagina-Regina. Whatever -- hoo-hoo it is.)
“Does it hurt?”
Yes, it hurts worse than anything you could ever imagine and you will wish someone would club you over the head with a metal hospital stool just so your could focus your attention on some pain other than the excruciating sensation of Mac truck trying to drive its way out of your hoo-hoo.
“No, it’s not that bad. The doctor can give you some medicine that makes it not hurt at all.”
“Do you drink the medicine?”
“No. Brace yourself...it’s a shot. But, the shot doesn’t even hurt.”
“You don’t feel the shot?”
No, because you are already writhing in so much pain to the point where a gigantic needle being shoved into your spine is hardly even noticeable.
“Nope. Don’t feel it at all.”
Then, my little girl let out a huge sigh of relief and a big grin spread across her face. She said, “Okay, Mom. Maybe I will think about having a baby after all.”
“That’s great, L. Just don’t think about it for another 20 years or so, okay?”
She threw her arms around my neck and said, “Thank you for making me feel better, Mommy.”
I hugged my baby girl and said, “You’re welcome, Monkey. Now you get some sleep, okay?”
For the love of all that is ovulating, please fall asleep before you remember to ask me how the baby gets in your tummy in the first place...
“Good night, L. I love you.”
“I love you, too, Mommy. Good night.”
Whew!
Being truthful is hard work. Where’s the stork when you need him?
But then I grew up. Well, kinda. And I have discovered that I don’t need to be L’s best friend and be a part of all the gossip and late-night talks about which boy is the cutest in class. I just want her to see me as someone she can come to with any problem or question and trust that I will give her an honest and direct answer.
I have struggled with this idea of truthfulness and how it extends (or doesn’t extend) to Santa, the Tooth Fairy and all those other harmless lies we tell our children. I play along, but will always fear that these untruths will taint my image as someone who can be trusted. But this past weekend, when my baby girl curled up on my lap, looked at me with those beautiful, blue, trusting eyes and very sincerely asked, “How does a baby come out of your stomach?” the last thing I wanted to do, was to give her an honest and direct answer.
I paused only slightly and then said, “Well, when it is time for the baby to be born, you go to the hospital and the doctor gets the baby out.” Ha! I did it! That was an honest and direct response that only answered the question asked. No need to elaborate, right?
Wrong.
“Yes, Mom, but how does the doctor get the baby out?”
Damn. Now what? Do I really want to get into this right now with a five-and-a-half-year-old? Is she old enough to know where babies come from? Of course, she’s not asking how the baby got there -- at least not yet. But, if I open up this discussion won’t it lead to The Talk?
Crap, she’s noticed how long I’ve been silent. Now any answer I give her will take on a magnified sense of importance simply because of the time it took to answer it. What if I tell her and then she goes and blabs it to all the other kids in preschool and I get angry phone calls from parents who weren’t even thinking about The Talk, but now must have it because obviously our household is one of sin and promiscuity and our daughter is a fountain of sexual knowledge?!
Okay, say something -- anything!
Speak, woman!
I know! Maybe she’ll accept the c-section explanation better and will be easier to comprehend. Okay, fine...go with that...
“Well, um, sometimes the doctor will have to get the baby out by opening up the mommy’s tummy. See, he makes a cut from here to here and -- ”
At this point, L burst into tears. Clearly, that was not the right direction to take.
I was hit with a litany of “I don’t want the doctor to cut open my tummy! I don’t want to have a baby! Don’t make me, okay Mommy! Promise I don’t ever have to have a baby!”
I was trying to calm her down and assure her that wasn’t a decision she had to make right now. The only way I could get out of that situation was to promise her that I was not going to make her have a baby now or any time in the future. That stopped the tears, but we both walked away from that encounter emotionally drained. And I felt like a huge failure. One of the first big moments in our relationship as trusting daughter/truthful mother was blown all to heck.
I spent the rest of the day worrying about it and trying to figure out how to rectify the situation. I simply couldn’t let her go on thinking that child birth was the horror show she was envisioning.
That night, before I tucked her in, I sat down on her bed beside her and said, “L, can we chat for just a minute about something?”
“Sure, Mom.”
“Well, you know how we talked this morning about how babies are born and you got so upset?”
“Yes. I cried and cried." She began to look concerned again and asked, "I don’t have to have a baby, do I?”
“No, honey," I replied. Then in a lighthearted manner I continued, "Look, L, there’s something else I need to tell you. See, there are two ways a baby can be born. One of them is for the doctor to open up the mommy’s tummy, but the other way is for it to come out from somewhere else.”
“Oh. Where?”
“Well, you know how our body has a lot of different holes, right? And each one is for something different; our nose is how we smell, and our mouth is how we eat, and our ears are how we hear. Well, you know that you have a hole in your hiney where the poo comes out -- ”
People, the disbelieving look on her face said, “Cheese and crackers! Lady, do not tell me that babies come out of your butt!”
Quickly I said, “And then there is your hoo-hoo. Babies come out of your hoo-hoo.”
Her response was to pause for a moment and then crack up laughing and say, “They come out of your hoo-hoo?! Ooooh, that is so gross!”
To which I replied, “Well, yes, it sorta is.”
(On a side note: I know that it is considered the progressive way of parenting to use the correct anatomical words for body parts. And we do use the correct words for everything but the hoo-hoo. I hate the V-word. It just sounds icky to me and I never use it. Perhaps it was all the years of being taunted with the horrible nickname Vagina-Regina. Whatever -- hoo-hoo it is.)
“Does it hurt?”
Yes, it hurts worse than anything you could ever imagine and you will wish someone would club you over the head with a metal hospital stool just so your could focus your attention on some pain other than the excruciating sensation of Mac truck trying to drive its way out of your hoo-hoo.
“No, it’s not that bad. The doctor can give you some medicine that makes it not hurt at all.”
“Do you drink the medicine?”
“No. Brace yourself...it’s a shot. But, the shot doesn’t even hurt.”
“You don’t feel the shot?”
No, because you are already writhing in so much pain to the point where a gigantic needle being shoved into your spine is hardly even noticeable.
“Nope. Don’t feel it at all.”
Then, my little girl let out a huge sigh of relief and a big grin spread across her face. She said, “Okay, Mom. Maybe I will think about having a baby after all.”
“That’s great, L. Just don’t think about it for another 20 years or so, okay?”
She threw her arms around my neck and said, “Thank you for making me feel better, Mommy.”
I hugged my baby girl and said, “You’re welcome, Monkey. Now you get some sleep, okay?”
For the love of all that is ovulating, please fall asleep before you remember to ask me how the baby gets in your tummy in the first place...
“Good night, L. I love you.”
“I love you, too, Mommy. Good night.”
Whew!
Being truthful is hard work. Where’s the stork when you need him?
Monday, May 10, 2010
Things Z Taught Me
Z turned three-years-old yesterday. I think I am now supposed to pause and reflect sentimentally on the past 1095 days this boy has been in my life. I should pull out all the standard clichés about the rapid progression of time and the “it seems like only yesterday” phrases. But tearing up at my kids’ baby pictures and lamenting the official end of my role as a mother of and infant/toddler is not my style.
I’m not made of stone, people -- I love that boy more than I ever thought it was possible to love someone who was so destructive. JAO accuses me of being soft on Z and falling for his little boy, cute manipulative ways. And I freely admit to my guilt. When he was first born, I had this overwhelming desire to retreat to my bedroom with my sweet, swaddled baby son and lock out the rest of the world. Now, of course, it is my overwhelming desire to flee to my room and lock Z out.
Nah, I’m kidding. No matter what, that kid is my favorite baby son and nothing will ever change that. I used to tease JAO about how much his mother still dotes on him and looks at him as though he could do no wrong; when I, in fact, know better. But now I understand her looks of adoration cast on her now-grown son. I used to tell my mother that she liked my brother best and she would always deny it. Now, however, I have a sneaking suspicion that I might have been right all along. You don’t mess with mothers and sons. There is a bubble around them that seals their special bond and protects it from the rest of the world.
Inside the bubble, however, a war of frustration and determination -- and sometimes poo -- rages.
Begrudgingly I will admit that I have come to, somewhat, enjoy the new form our relationship has taken. It’s a “him vs. me” game that both of us are determined to win. Z is trying to come up with new and creative ways to destroy my home or display some type of crazy-in-the-head shocking behavior and I, of course, try to thwart his efforts. Who is winning? I like to think that arguments could be made for either side; however, my guess is that you would all put your money on Z.
At the very least, life with Z has not been boring. In fact, it has been quite educational. The following is my list of Top Ten Things I Have Learned Being the Mommy of Z:
I know there are more lessons to be learned from my favorite little man and I look forward to whatever the next 1095 days have to bring. I am a better mom and perhaps even a better person because of Z. And yes, I teared-up a little bit during that last sentence. Like I said, I'm not made of stone. I love my son -- poo and all.
I’m not made of stone, people -- I love that boy more than I ever thought it was possible to love someone who was so destructive. JAO accuses me of being soft on Z and falling for his little boy, cute manipulative ways. And I freely admit to my guilt. When he was first born, I had this overwhelming desire to retreat to my bedroom with my sweet, swaddled baby son and lock out the rest of the world. Now, of course, it is my overwhelming desire to flee to my room and lock Z out.
Nah, I’m kidding. No matter what, that kid is my favorite baby son and nothing will ever change that. I used to tease JAO about how much his mother still dotes on him and looks at him as though he could do no wrong; when I, in fact, know better. But now I understand her looks of adoration cast on her now-grown son. I used to tell my mother that she liked my brother best and she would always deny it. Now, however, I have a sneaking suspicion that I might have been right all along. You don’t mess with mothers and sons. There is a bubble around them that seals their special bond and protects it from the rest of the world.
Inside the bubble, however, a war of frustration and determination -- and sometimes poo -- rages.
Begrudgingly I will admit that I have come to, somewhat, enjoy the new form our relationship has taken. It’s a “him vs. me” game that both of us are determined to win. Z is trying to come up with new and creative ways to destroy my home or display some type of crazy-in-the-head shocking behavior and I, of course, try to thwart his efforts. Who is winning? I like to think that arguments could be made for either side; however, my guess is that you would all put your money on Z.
At the very least, life with Z has not been boring. In fact, it has been quite educational. The following is my list of Top Ten Things I Have Learned Being the Mommy of Z:
1.) Nothing cracks me up more (or disturbs me as much) as watching Z roll his eyes back in his head to the point where his pupils almost entirely disappear from sight.
2.) Washable markers are not, in fact, washable when applied to carpet.
3.) If you’re bored, throwing toys down the heating and air vents in the floor is a fun distraction.
4.) If you try hard enough, you can wedge a wooden train into almost any crevice to the point where it is impossible to retrieve.
5.) A running child can cross the entire length of a Super Target in 12 seconds. A running mom pushing a buggy needs at least 20.
6.) Spill-proof cups are not, in fact, spill-proof when hurled at the wall with the intent of a major-league pitcher.
7.) The command “faster!” screamed by an excited Z being pushed on a swing can make passers-by think he is commenting on the marital status of their parents at the time of their birth.
8.) An open container of anything -- water, Coke, a can of Spaghettioes -- should never be left out unless you wish to see the contents of the container dumped out onto whatever surface is available.
9.) Even after he has had a complete, nutritious meal, if you walk into the room carrying anything remotely food-like, he will rush over to you and hold his mouth open like a baby bird. “Bite? Me, bite?” “Z, this is a plate of fish head and cabbage.” “Me have some?” Sigh.
10.) A little boy dressed in a pink tu-tu and sporting a head full of pink hair bows still looks like a boy.
I know there are more lessons to be learned from my favorite little man and I look forward to whatever the next 1095 days have to bring. I am a better mom and perhaps even a better person because of Z. And yes, I teared-up a little bit during that last sentence. Like I said, I'm not made of stone. I love my son -- poo and all.
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