Prolly All the Time

dervish, of the whirling and screaming variety

To say that things have been challenging the past few days at casa t'pon would be to employ a certain level of understatement that I find, quite frankly, to be passe.  To say that my once darling son has turned into a head-spinning, pea-soup spitting minion of Beelzebub himself...  well, that would be to employ a refreshing element of truth rarely seen in this day and age.

I am not quite sure what is going on with him. In the past three days I have, on several occasions, thought that duct taping him in a large refrigerator box with some graham crackers and a gallon of milk might not be such a bad idea to get just a moments peace.

I am not trying to imply that he has always been a perfect child, so joyful that sunshine was spilling out of his ass, but he was certainly pleasant...  generally fun to be around and a good sport when things occasionally did not go his way. Even on his worst day, we could count on certain events that would bring this kid around -- a walk to the park, a nice long romp in the tub, and of course a hearty meal.  Alas, it appears that the days of simple distraction have gone the way of the penny candy.

These days, there is the screaming, the stomping, the extreme arching of the back and most recently the troubling and sickening thud produced by a small child banging their head against the floor or wall. I am told that this is mostly likely a normal reflection of a toddler's frustration with a desire to communicate and a vocabulary that fails him.  But let me tell you something, he is making his point QUITE effectively. 

And when he is not doing his best to summon all of the demons of hell to his side, he is flat out moving at a speed that is inhuman. I suspect that he might be physically incapable of rest.  At any given moment he is running, climbing, getting into anything and everything that is casually set aside for even a second. Yesterday, I caught him trying to climb up the shelves of the linen closet to reach a bottle of lotion that I had taken away from him only moments earlier and three days ago, I came into the living room to find him standing on the coffee table.  Two days ago, he figured out the child proof casing for the surge protector.  What the FAAAAHCK?  Why did we pay for all of this ugly-ass child proofing crap if he was just going to figure out how the FAAAAHCK to use it. 

Oh, and have I mentioned that he has stopped eating anything that isn't a cheese slice or yo baby?  So, in addition to being in a constant state of frayed nerves and preparedness for the eventual trip to the emergency room, I am also nursing a pretty intense concern that he might in some way be damaged by too much calcium and too little of anything else.

Upon mentioning this concern, my mother pointed out that perhaps, like any other normal craving, this was his body's way of of doing a little preventative care...  strong bones are less likely to break.

Well, his bones might be safe from breaking, but that is precious little consolation to my spirit.

lessons from the hunt...

This weekend, in celebration of life's triumph over death, Bean experienced his first Easter Egg Hunt.  In fairness to the word "hunt,"  at this age, I think that the name of the event is a misnomer given the fact that we did very little "hunting" and did a lot more "tripping" over every single egg that eventually landed in our basket -- which ended up being only a total of seven eggs and one posable bunny figurine.

I do think that he took away some very valuable lessons however, summarized here in my most favored bulleted list format:

• Do not ever come between a girl and her chocolate.  She will scream and it will only end badly for you.
• Don't bother doing any of the actual work. There is always some kid who is willing and EAGER to go above and beyond to overachieve. Just follow him around and take the eggs out of his basket when he isn't looking.
• If you leave eggs stuffed with candy hidden in the grass in 90 degree weather, you will attract sugar ants.
• As an ancillary to the above, ants DO NOT taste good, even if they have been munching on your candy. Also, they tickle like all get out if you snort them up your nose.
• Farm animals stink... and are not so much interested in little boys.
• Little boys stink... and are VERY interested in farm animals.
• Unsuspecting teenage girls will give all manner of sugary treats to very cute baby boys who flash their big blue eyes and giggle.
• As an ancillary to the above, the best way to eliminate nap time and delay bedtime until your 13th birthday, is to consume two sugar cookies, one chocolate eclair, and a big, fluffy portion of cotton candy INSTEAD of the turkey, cheese, and fruit that mommy packed for you...
• As an ancillary to the above, above, mommy uses a very interesting selection of words to refer to those very nice, but unsuspecting teenage girls while she chases me up and down and all around.

Ah yes, a good time was had by all...

SUCCESS!

I MADE IT ON TIME!  I MADE IT ON TIME!  and not just because my parents flight arrived 2 hours late. 

I actually had to make the loop around the airport three times before they were out and ready for pick up.  That is right, my wubbies, I ROCKED this airport pick-up.  Redemption is mine...

The plan worked, although N. only remembered one question -- which was fine, as it was enough of a trigger to get me to think of everything else.

The weekend was a blast, until yesterday when I jacked up my back.  It is in a horrible place too.  Right behind my shoulder blade, forcing me to slink around the house like some kind of evil-doer in a silent horror film (think Nosferatu).

simple request

Yesterday evening, I made what I considered to be a very simple request of N.  I asked him to please remember to ask me the following questions today around dinner time:

• Does your car have gas?
• Is that what you are going to wear?
• Is there anything that you want to watch on TV?

My parents are coming into town tonight for a few days visit.  I am very excited about this...  not only do I love spending time with my parents, as they are perpetually entertaining both as a couple and as individuals and as an only child I miss them a lot...

BUT, weekends with my parents tend to be lucrative for all members of the t'pon family.  Amongst our friends, these weekends are often referred to as the "lucky sonuvabitch weekends" -- N. generally walks away with some stylish man-duds and techno gear, Bean is showered with all manner of expensive brain building toys and cutie-pie clothing, and yours truly (as long as I am not post-partum...) makes out with 67% of my year's wardrobe. Exploiting my parent's generosity is my birthright.  I worked long and hard to make them proud -- to become a child to which they could point and say "yes, successful we are!"  It is only fair for them to compensate me for the effort. 

One day, I, in turn and in recognition of all they have done for me, will seek out the best moderately-priced, adequately staffed and relatively clean care facility in which they can spend their golden years. That is what family is ALL about.    I digress...

In the 10 years that my parents have been flying out here to visit me, I have only ONCE made it to the airport on time to pick them up (and that was because I arrived 10 minutes late, but their flight was delayed by 45 minutes, so I might have lied a little).  It is beginning to wear on my parent's nerves.  It is not that they are impatient people who do not like to be left waiting... I think that they just figure that an adult -- with a job, a mortgage, a kid -- should be able to make the 20 minute trip to the airport in TIME to meet their parents. I also have an almost perfect track record with ANYONE else.

And, I really do try to get there on time, I plan my days around it.  But without fail, something will happen that adds an additional 15-20 minutes to the trip to the airport making me late. 

This time, I will be on time. In preparation, I analyzed what issues most lead me to be late to the airport:

• Poor fuel planning...  I am very bad about keeping gas in my car despite a general fear of being stranded.  I have on more than several occasions been halfway to the airport when I realized that my car is choking on fumes.  By the time that I find a gas station, fill up the car, etc...  LATE!
• Slovenly appearance... My mom once told me that she would leave me at the airport the next time I stepped off a plane looking like hammered shit (in my defense, I was hung over and had not done laundry in several weeks).  In the subsequent 14 years since that exchange, I at least try to look presentable.  But this is ALWAYS a last minute consideration, adding 10-15 minutes to the departure time... LATE!
• TV Zombie...  I often get stuck in the TV, I start watching something 15 minutes before I am supposed to go somewhere and then I can't stop.  Yes, we have a DVR, yes, I know how to use it and I use it frequently...  it doesn't matter. I have a problem... LATE!
• Bean has his own "time-table" for getting stuff done...  this needs no explanation.  Why is it that with all the planning in the world, I can not get out of the house with this kid WITHOUT running 10-15 minutes behind schedule... LATE! (but Bean will be asleep at their arrival time, so he is not a factor in my plan.)

I also identified that based on what I know about myself and my brain's and the TV's desire to foil my best laid plans... I will need support to be on time. And so I asked N. to put forth the aforementioned questions in an effort to support my new approach.

After about a 10 minute pause in the conversation, during which I could hear the crickets complain of leg cramps from working so hard to fill the silence, N. replied... 

"you know, most people would have just said 'Will you please make sure that I am not late tomorrow?' and be done with it."

Well, perhaps.  But, YOU did not marry most people, smart-ass.

alright already!

You know, I have been trying to avoid recapping my recent guest performance with the Beavertucky Dancers in the passive-aggressive ballet.  But, ever since I indicated that I had caved and pulled on the tights, I have been FLOODED with requests for the update.  OK, flooded might be an exaggeration...  but I am short, so we can chalk it up to a matter of perspective.  you can drown in as little as a few inches of email people... be vigilant.

See, see me trying to distract you...  LOOK, over there.

OK, so it started quite innocently.  My MIL asked N. what MY opinion of the situation was...  now, some of you may find that irritating, that she refuses to actually call and speak to me -- that she only calls us on N.'s cell phone.  But, in this case, I avoided getting involved directly.  N. expressed that I really thought that since the baby is in fact my SIL's, her rules trump all.  That is all he told me about the conversation.  I think that more was said, who knows.

About three days later, as I am emailing with SIL on a TOTALLY unrelated subject, she personally introduced me to the large, pink elephant sitting in the corner. For two days, I ignored the elephant... but they are very loud and messy and they eat a lot... eventually, I had to acknowledge it. If for no other reason than I had to email my SIL back about something else.  It would have been awkward.  Plus, I was a little irritated that this stupid feud was still going on.

Long story short...  I was honest with her. I told her that I agreed with her but that for her to expect my MIL to be anything other than the person she has been for 57 years was being unrealistic and that she was setting herself up for a lifetime of disappointment. 

You see, as irritating and foreign as I think that my MIL is, and as bizarre as her behavior can be...  I have come to learn something about her over the past 7 years. She does not really know how to have a real, true relationship based on mutual trust and love with another person.  She had a tough childhood, she had to compete for affection...  and she has never met the good end of a psychologist's couch.  In many ways, I feel sorry for her.  It must be difficult and exhausting and incredibly lonely to never really TRUST that people care about you and love you, even if they disagree with you. There are people who are maliciously manipulative... she is not one of them. She has no idea that other people's minds and hearts don't work like hers.  She is just... oh heck, you know.

There is something else. My MIL lived to be a mother -- it defined her, it was her calling. You think that some of the mothers in your neighborhood "mommy mafia" are over the top...  you have no idea.  This woman started the revolution.  So, for my SIL to criticize her for the way she handled a child... to call into question her care for an infant, well, my SIL might as well have said "you are a suck ass mother!" because I guarantee you... that is what my MIL heard.

And this is in a nutshell, what I told my SIL.  That she had every right to speak her peace, to stand up for her wishes for her child... but in doing so, she had to understand what was going on in my MIL's head and prepare for the inevitable reaction.  Understanding this, has helped me pick my battles and let other things slide with a clench of the butt-hole and a crick of the neck.

My husband, FIL and BIL have their own coping mechanism for this... and as immature as I may think it is, it has served them well for over 35 years.  I encouraged SIL to find her own way of maneuvering around the landmines.  She is going to need it...

Living five miles away and all.

I don't think that they have resolved the issue... but perhaps they each have something to think about...

the sins of the mother...

I am quite certain that I have already failed my son as a mother...  I mean, all I have to do is read another tofu-farting AP book to know that by this point in our mother-son relationship, I have already set him up for a life of hardship and heartache. He will be virtually incapable of warding off sickness, will always have a fear of being left for dead in a dark, quiet room.  He will struggle to decipher the difference between a pacifier and a wom*an's ni$pple, causing much ridicule and snickering. The list goes on and on and on...  I am surprised he even has the will to get up in the morning.*

But as if that wasn't enough, as if a lifetime of gut-wrenching personal struggle were not enough of a character building experience, I am also going to grant him with a mouth full of rotten teeth.

There are a lot of things that scared the bajeebus out of me when I found out that I was going to be responsible for another human being. Some of those things, mastering the sleep schedule, have proved to be the equivalent of a rather unpleasant, but quick experience like smelling very sour milk...  it sucks, but you can't resist going back for another whiff. Others have proved worthy of their fear, rotovirus...

Never, not one single time, did brushing this kid's teeth even enter into my imagination.  And now, it is the hands-down worst 10 minutes of every - single - day. I suspect that Bean would prefer to have his temperature taken the "old fashioned way" than to have me clean his pearly whites.  Some days, he is just passively insistent, using the full force of his unusually strong tongue (I can only guess this is from intense bottle/binky sucking over the past 14 months) to keep the brush from crossing the threshold. On others, he writhes and screams with arms flailing as if I have laid hands on his body to drive out the demons.  The cumulative effect of this sick bathroom dance is that I am 74% certain that each of his eight teeth has been brushed at least once, maybe. And now that he is cutting two molars...  the agony!

We have encouraged him to help us, we have tried distraction (the most successful was sitting him in the sink and letting the water run). We have employed a variety of prone positions, including hanging him upside down, and a number of different types of brushing accoutrement. I will even admit to holding him down on one occasion.

He, in turn, has become a Houdini Jr. -- capable of breaking any hold, grasp, or lock.  He may very well be the "one" -- sent to revive this world's love for wrestling. (God, let us hope not.) He has lip strength that I find disturbing, and has nearly taken the tip of my finger off no fewer than 17 times.

I have already admitted to being a less-than-stellar dental patient, myself -- my fear of jaw and mouth discomfort, coupled with a dislike for flossing make me a challenge.  I have, however, been blessed with good dental genes.  Were Bean a clone, I would sit him in front of the TV with a Costco-size bag of Swedish Fish, a can of root beer (as a clone, we would share common interests...), and be done with it.  But, N. is not so blessed and given the vast amount of N's genetic material that Bean displays... I would just be asking for several thousand dollars of dental work before I could get him off of our insurance. And given the mind-bending amount of therapy for which I will no doubt be paying...  I have to find some savings somewhere.

And so, I brush.

* no offense to those of you who practice and believe in AP.  Like I always say, whatever works for you.  But, you do have to acknowledge that the books are a bit... well, fanatic.