The Bean is three years old today.
I told her that she could have anything she wanted for breakfast.
She wanted cold mac and cheese and jellybeans.
Blech. Whatever, kid. It's your birthday. I love you.
I hesitate to write posts like this because some of my readers are judgmental jerkwads.
I have readers that seem to look for any opportunity to see my human frailty as a mother. They love to pounce on any admission of frustration as an opportunity to click their tongues and think "See? I told you she was no good. I was/am/would be such a better mother than she is. And she's having another baby? Tsk, tsk tsk." Invariably, I'll get a call or an email or a rumor through the grapevine that my admission somehow added evidence to the case file The State of Perfect Motherhood v. that Substandard Woman Jen Rodis
But today is one of those days when I want to sell my kids to the neighbors and run away somewhere tropical.
My day started at five, when I discovered my pants-less daughter on my bed stealing my covers. With a snoring husband and an almost-three-year-old kick machine next to me in bed, sleep wasn't really an option.
Chris woke early too. He decided to spend the day mimicking a typhoon alarm. I don't know if it's just teething, or teething that is perhaps combined with a mild ear infection. (Why suffer with one form of pain when you can have two, really? Why not be efficient and have both? Throw in dysentery if you're feeling particularly productive.) Chris has been whining and crying just about non-stop for three days now. No fever, no bowel issues, nothing symptomatic, just WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH, and when he catches his breath, WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH. Lather, rinse, repeat.
What is it about kids that allow them to cry at the EXACT frequency that scrambles your brain and makes you batty? After three days of this, I'm ready to crouch in a corner, rock back and forth, chew my hair and mutter The Sea Monkeys made me to do it over and over.
Once the kids were up and fed, and Dim off to work, I had to extract my daughter from under my bed. Like me, she has a circus-freak large head. She may be in the 25th percentile for height and weight, but she's 75th for head circumference. More room for brains. Like me, I fear that turtlenecks and headwear of any kind will prove impossible for her. I found her under my bed distressing the cat, and saying "oops, Mama. I'm stuck. I'm sorry." I manage to drag her out by her ankles up to her neck, but her head proved more difficult. Also, I discovered that she was naked - again. This child refuses clothing, even to go furniture spelunking. We have one of those memory foam mattresses, and it weighs about 1,342 pounds. I was not about to attempt to lift a corner of the bed to release her cranium. Luckily, it wasn't bad enough that I had to grease her up with Crisco, but it might come in handy next time. I manage to get her out with a minimum of rug burns and head vises, but all the while Chris is grabbing on to my pants with snot and tears leaking out, notifying me of the imminent arrival of Hurricane Orajel: WAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH.
I have an icon hanging near my desk, a small picture in the Eastern style of Mary holding a baby Jesus. I don't talk about my faith often, but I found this icon on Ebay a few years ago, and I keep it near as a talisman for those days when I want Gypsies to come and take either me or the kids away. It's sparsely decorated, which is typical of Eastern Orthodox icons. The standard elements are there for any art historian to point out: Mary's hair is covered by her robe, she has three stars on her garment, one above her forehead and one on either shoulder, she and Jesus have halos around their heads, and Jesus is dressed way better than she is. Judging from the apparent age of Jesus in the icon, it seems odd that Mary doesn't have some applesauce smeared on her robe somewhere, but I suppose that's just for simplicity's sake. She looks incredibly serene, and when you look closer, you notice that she has three hands. One is holding Jesus, one is gesturing to him, and the third hangs out underneath the other two.
There's a whole long story about John of Damascus and why he commissioned an icon of Mary with extra appendages, but you can google that if you like. I like the icon, not just because of its religious implications, but because it's a gentle reminder to me that all of us, even the best of us, could really use an extra hand now and then.
I don't pray often. I feel that God has a full plate most days, what with fielding other people's prayers about the sick, the financially desperate, the very important sports bet, and whatever those wackadoo televangelists are going on about. My issues seem so small in comparison. There are times though, when I ask for help to get through the day, or on some days, help to get through the next half hour. It usually helps, even if it's just because I admitted out loud that the day sucks balls and I need to get myself together to get through it.
And no, I don't think that God minds that I use the phrase SUCKS BALLS. He knows how I feel, why sugar coat it?
Ultimately, I get to recharge while the two kids nap in the afternoon. I get to hit the reset button while enjoying a thrilling round of Clean-The-Kitchen-Again or managing to SIT THE HELL DOWN with a glass of Pepsi while working on my closing arguments for I'm Doing the Best I Can v. Blow it out your pie hole. If there's anyone out there who thinks that being a stay-at-home mom isn't as tough as having a career, I have a third hand with a gesture for you.
We've been watching him on TV for what, almost two years?
Bean: [watching CNN] That's Obama. He's the president. He's brown.
As adults, race is probably the first thing we recognize about a person. Children, though, don't look at that until MUCH later (unless they're taught to, I suppose.)
It's windy and rainy and cold today. Bean was going on and on about playing in the rain in the backyard. Since she was stark naked at the time*, I asked her if she wanted to put clothes on first. It seemed like a rational request, what with it being 52 degrees outside and blustery. "No, mama. Only shoes."
Okay, I'm all for letting my kids run around in the rain naked. I think it's awesome in a Free-to-be-you-and-me, my-parents-were-hippies, I'm-not-the-tightass-parent-most-people-think-I-am way. She hasn't learned that public nudity is weird. She doesn't have any of the body image issues that she'll undoubtedly struggle with later in life. And, come on, who HASN'T wanted to be naked in the rain? But it was COLD, people. I'd have a really hard time explaining to the pediatrician how she managed to develop icicles on her butt cheeks. So I said no.
But we all needed to get out of the house. The kids were going stir crazy with cabin fever, and I can only pick up legos off the floor for so long until I snap and build the kids a jail cell with them, Cask of Amontillado-style. So I bundled them up, loaded The Beast (the double stroller) into the car, and we headed off to the mall.
I hate the mall. Really. It's like the seventh circle of hell for me. I don't like the saleswomen in the cosmetics departments, or the kiosk attendants who leap out to offer me samples of cellulite cream or jewelry cleaners or wind-up helicopters, or the tweens wandering aimlessly all giggly and hormone-y. But I knew that there would be a Hot Dog on a Stick and an indoor playground, so I figured I could stomach it for a few hours.
I had a Hot Dog on a Stick (okay, two, with lots of mustard) and Bean and Mr. Man had McDonald's cheeseburgers. Bean ate her entire cheeseburger, which was a bit of a shock to me, since the girl survives mostly on air and raisins. I think that she must have chloroplasts hidden just beneath her skin. She must photosynthesize food, because she sure doesn't have a big appetite most days. Mr. Man will eat anything. He'd eat his own sock if you'd let him.
We finished lunch and headed over to the playground area. It's not much, just a fenced in area with a half dozen or so fiberglass structures that they change out every now and again based on whoever the corporate sponsor is. This time around, it was our local paper, the Review Journal, so the fiberglass objects were a delivery van with a slide off the back, a giant rolled-up newspaper tunnel, a home with a giant mailbox, and a few low-lying butterflies and flowers. Bean went to town. There were lots of kids there (apparently my "let's go to a well-lit indoor playground while it's rainy" idea wasn't an original one) but most of them were pretty well behaved. They were pretty good about taking turns on the slide and not head-butting each other too much.
Except for Addy. Addy was a giant shit.
This little girl was by far the snottiest, meanest, bossiest girl in the place. I'm guessing she was four. She was yelling at kids, shoving and yanking them off the equipment, and bossing everyone around. She was pushing the mailbox around, not caring that she was mowing down the smaller kids and running over the bare feet of others.
There was a nice Japanese mom and grandmother, who would occasionally steer her away from the smaller kids, and would gently say in broken English "be good girl." But to no avail. She would go right back to wagging her finger at other kids and yell at them "THIS IS MY MAILBOX! YOU GO AWAY RIGHT NOW!" and continue shoving and flattening feet.
I should say that I generally don't think it's appropriate to parent other people's kids, especially kids that you don't know. Some kids are assholes and it's not always the fault of the parents. Also, the kid could be autistic or something and not able to control herself. I also think that part of the whole playground experience for kids is to learn how to get along with each other, get bonked in the head a few times, and skin their knees. I'm not the type of parent who feels the need to bubble wrap my kids and spray them with Lysol whenever they come in contact with another kid or unsanitized play equipment. Dealing with bullies and other snot-nosed kids is part of normal childhood, and I don't want to interfere with that too much.
But.
It was becoming increasingly obvious that Addy's parents were paying no attention to her, and she was starting to hurt the other kids, in addition to her being a bratty little turd. Finally, I whipped out my don't-mess-with-me mom voice and said "Little girl, you need to stop this behavior RIGHT NOW. You need to share these things with the other kids, and not be so bossy and mean." She glared at me, pointed her finger, and yelled "I DON'T WANT TO. YOU BE QUIET. YOU GET OUT OF MY WAAAAAAAAAY!"
Oh, no she didn't I thought. She just messed with the wrong mama.
I looked at the Japanese mom and grandmother, and we exchanged a look that said "Did that actually just happen?" We all looked totally shocked. I had just gotten sassed by a four-year old for calling her on her bratty behavior. That crossed a line. This girl needed an attitude adjustment.
I grabbed her hand and I said "Where is your mommy? Let's go talk to her" She pointed to her mom and her dad, who were sitting not five steps away, but totally oblivious to the little girl's shouting and bullying. I walked her to her parents, and was far more diplomatic than I wanted to be. I said "Your daughter is having a very hard time being kind to the other children and being respectful to adults. I think she needs a talking-to." Wasn't that diplomatic of me? It was the G-rated version of what I was really thinking. I was totally expecting them to tell me to mind my own damn business and let them deal with their daughter themselves, but they didn't. I walked away. The mom sighed and said "Addy, dear. You need to be nicer to the other kids. Now go play." Guess who was back to terrorizing the other kids within ten seconds?
Grrrrrr.
But here's the really interesting part. They left about five or ten minutes later, and while the mom was trying to wrestle her daughter's shoes and socks back on her, the little girl was screaming "I DON'T WANNA LEAVE! I WANNA PLAY! MOMMY, I DON'T LIKE YOU. YOU'RE SO STOOOOOOOOOPID!" And the mom just TOOK IT. Can you believe it? If she said anything to her kid, I didn't hear it. The dad was in earshot of the girl's insult, and he didn't do anything, either. That tells me that this little terror runs the house, verbally abuses her parents, and gets away with it. Can you imagine what that girl's going to be like as an adolescent?