Fear and Loathing In The Diaper Pail

Well, Mrs. Grandma must have told Tara how uncomfortable I was, because as soon as I walked in the door, Tara apologized to me and said she thought she’d let me know she’d be gone. I was nice about it, but said that no, she hadn’t and Liam was upset to be left with Mrs. Grandma and that I don’t personally know Mrs. Grandma, so I didnt feel too comfortable myself and would she please in the future just call me or email me.

So that’s that. It happened once and it won’t happen twice.

I am very unhappy with our babysitter right now. And unhappy with myself.

I take Liam to a girl who runs an in-home daycare. She is nice enough, the price is right and Liam seems to enjoy it. However, when we arrived today, she wasn’t there. She was gone, taking her baby to a doctors appointment. Her mother was there instead. I’ve met this lady before, but Tara has always been there. I’ve never left Liam alone with the grandma. The other kids who were normally there were there, playing and making a ruckus and seemed just fine, but they’re a little older (4, 2 and 2) and Liam was not comfortable with the situation. When Mrs. Grandma (I dont even know this woman’s name) went to pick him up, he started crying uncontrollably and reached back to me for me to take him back, which I did and we sat down on the sofa and I tried to get him to warm up. Mrs. Grandma would try to talk to him or put her hands out and ask if he wanted to go in the kitchen and get some Cheerios and he would bury his head in my coat and hang onto me, which is just really out of the ordinary for him.

I understand that he is at the age where he will have stranger anxiety. But just because it’s a phase doesnt mean those feelings arent real to him and I can’t just leave him with a woman he doesnt know.

All my mother instincts told me to just take him home. He doesnt know her. More importantly, I dont know her. And Tara should have told me she wouldnt be there. What the fuck am I paying her for if her mom is going to be there instead? And who is she to assume I’d be comfortable with the situation? But all the other kids were there and happy. Their parents had left them there. Although I dont know how the parents felt either. Maybe Tara was there when they dropped them off. Maybe they dont even know that someone else is watching their kids. And Mrs. Grandma is very nice, at least from the few minutes I’ve met her, but that doesnt mean anything. For all I know she’s an insane witch child molester. If I’d taken Liam back home, then I would have insulted her and Tara. And it makes me angry to think that I may have made a bad decision that wasn’t in my son’s best interest because I’m worried about insulting some old lady I don’t even know and her stupid fucking daughter who didn’t have the courtesy to call me in the first place.

I don’t know. Am I blowing this out of proportion? Am I paranoid? Is it just that I havent been a mom very long, so I’m uptight? Or should I listen to myself and trust myself more? It makes me mad, because I always thought I’d be a stronger mother than this. I always thought I’d never even have to debate a decision like this. My child’s needs and safety and peace of mind first and to hell with everyone else. It’s not complicated … in theory. In practice, I’m finding it’s much harder than that, and it shouldn’t be. Why am I letting Tara and her mother tell me what’s best for my son? For me? I just wanted to cry when I left there and I want to cry now, I’m so mad at myself.

I stayed with Liam for about 20 minutes to help him get warmed up. At first he wouldnt get off my lap, but eventually I got him to sit on the floor, get into a couple of toys and he eventually smiled and waved at the toys, so I’m sure he’s going to be just fine and he didn’t cry or even notice that much when I left. So in all likelihood, he’s just fine. But fucking HELL, he wasn’t fine when we got there and I know my own kid. Stranger anxiety or not, he’s never reacted that badly before. Liam is a very easygoing baby and apprehension toward strangers never lasts long. But the clinginess and crying is not usual.

I dont know what to do, I don’t want to lay into Tara, she’s a good babysitter otherwise, but I just want to kill her right now. And I dont want to let his go unmentioned like I dont care, because I do and I especially don’t like her putting me in a spot. I guess I will just tell her that from now on, I want her to let me know in advance if she wont be there so I can bring Liam on another day. I think that’s fair. I dont think she had her mom there for some evil reason, I just dont like the presumption that Liam or I are cool with it.

Now I dont know if I should tell Adam. He will be pissed, for sure. And will he be pissed at me for my decision to leave him there?

When do you trim an 11-month-old’s hair and fingernails?

DURING SESAME STREET. Duhhhhhh.

Why didn’t I think of this before?

Rereading my first entry about the possibility of reading profanity on this thing has made me consider the possibility of NOT using profanity. With the handy invention of the delete key, it is in fact possible to not swear, even if it’s something I would normally do out loud.

I’ve always been big into swearing. And motherhood has not changed that, although it has made me more aware that someday I will hear a tiny little boy voice say the F-word from the backseat of the car after I’ve used it on an offending fellow motorist. I can curb the mouth on the computer. I can curb the mouth when my grandparents are around. I CANNOT curb the mouth when I’m driving. I just can’t.

For me, it’s always been a matter of “I’ll do what I want, when I want, how I want.” And growing up with a dad who said it made me sound like a “whore”, doing whatever I want is just my personal way of sticking to the man. He ain’t the boss of me.

Now, although motherhood has not changed my predilection for pottymouth, for some reason the looming specter of turning 30 has. Thirty has been bothering me. Well, not bothering me, really, but definitely giving me pause for thought. For the first time, I’m actually feeling older. Like somehow I really need to start deserving the gravitas that comes with being able to say, “I’m in my 30s.” I think about taking better care of my skin so I dont get old lady turkey neck someday. I’ve inventoried every remotely valuable possession in our house for insurance purposes. I’ve also listed all the expenses I would have to cover if Adam died, so I know how much life insurance to take out. I have to buy LIFE INSURANCE for chrissakes. I think about watching my cholesterol intake so in 10 years I dont have to hear the words, “triglycerides” at a doctors appointment. I usually think of this while I’m enjoying a nice big bowl of Hooters Three-Mile-Island wings drowning in bleu cheese dressing and a icy cold bottle of Budweiser. Talk about a buzzkill.

But it’s these grown-up issues that make me stop and think if perhaps, just perhaps, I should make an effort to not sound like a junior-high-schooler who just learned these shocking, SHOCKING never-before-uttered words. I’m not exactly blazing trails here.

In my defense, you have to admit I’m not the person I was five, four, three, two years ago. Back then I could lay claim to smokin’, drinkin’, rockin’ to loud music, workin’ crap jobs far beneath my intelligence and education, a shame list of jackass dates, boyfriends and ex-husbands. And here I am. Evolving as we speak. I have a happy marriage. I am a parent. I am a homeowner. I havent smoked in nearly two years and I havent been drunk in two years (I know what you’re thinking, but it’s true. I have not been good and drunk since early January 2004.). The loudest CD in my car right now is The Definitive Stevie Wonder. So cussin’ like a tomboy, well, let’s just say I’ll work on it. I’m making strides in my personal vices. One thing at a time and all that.

Now, if I can just stop biting my fingernails …

(stay tuned I will most likely edit this)

Oh my God. I am so fucking exhausted today. Twice a week, I take Liam to a girl’s house so she can watch him for a few hours while I do whatever I want without having to lug around a baby. I say “girl,” but she’s my age and “woman” seems weird to me, even if we are 30.

Anyhow, today was one of those “Break Days” and I’m tireder than ever. It seems like whenever I take him to the sitter’s I spend the day furiously doing all the errands and chores I can’t get done when he’s around. You never realize how little you can do with a crawler in the house. I can’t leave him alone in a room. I can’t do even nominally noisy chores like emptying the dishwasher or vacuuming when he’s napping. I can’t carry laundry downstairs and carry him a the same time. I can’t do anything involving anything he can ingest, like pot plants or clean the bathroom.

So from 10-2 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I’m running around like a nut. I can’t take him to too many stores that dont involve a grocery cart, because he gets bored in a stroller and starts to crab loudly, which makes me rush through whatever I’m doing and inevitably leads me to forget what I wanted to shop for the first place. Forget the bookstore, clothes shopping, anything like that. It seems like I actually get more rest when he’s home all day, because I have to be quiet during naptimes, so for at least two hours a day, I can take a shower, check my email, read or even take a nap myself. Today, no such nap.

The hilarious thing is, the reason I started taking him to the sitter in the first place was so I could get some decompression time. Adam probably wonders why we’re blowing money on a sitter when I’m STILL too tired to function after 4 p.m. I have been shirking my wifely duties to say the least. Assuming you dont count all the cooking and cleaning and child-rearing (under which I include all feeding, butt-wiping, playing and electrocution prevention) and social-calendar-keeping and grocery shopping and laundry washing and what I would prefer to call “aesthetic home improvement,” which is a better way to say decorating without it sounding all Stepford-wifey and frou frou. Yes, assuming you don’t count those things, I am a totally shitty wife.

The other problem with having a baby this age is that he is no longer just content to sit and play wherever you put him. No, he has to EXPLORE. So forget trying to get dinner started early before Adam gets home. Because WITHOUT FAIL, he will empty whatever he can reach in the pantry, get his fingers stuck in a drawer, fall down while trying to push his high chair across the room, pull on our expensive wooden blinds, check out a door hinge with his foot and mouth the lamp cord and outlet in the dining room. He may also crawl over to the fireplace and either fall down on the bricks or bash the screen with his hands. Or mess with the plants, which I have to have strategically arranged anyway so as to not let them be eaten by cats. I have these two plumeria plants I bought in Hawaii on my honeymoon. And they’re doing great and getting taller, although they havent bloomed yet. But if I leave them anywhere near a cat’s reach, the leaves will be gnawed off. I wish plumeria leaves caused vomiting. That would teach those assholes. Of course, then I’d be cleaning up cat puke. They eat my hyacinths after they come up and two kitties are going to the POUND. Anyway, Liam is sure to get in any amount of trouble while my back is turned cooking dinner, and its ALWAYS when my hands are covered in raw meat.

Why not put him in a playpen, you may ask? HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAHA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. You are obviously not a parent.

Not that I was planning to do this anytime soon, but I was curious as to whether I could give blood. I had a blood transfusion in February and I wondered if that mattered. The Red Cross says I can give blood 12 months after a transfusion. Reading some more, it turns out it doesn’t matter. I’m completely ineligible to give blood because according to the Red Cross website:

You are not eligible to donate if:
From January 1, 1980, through December 31, 1996, you spent (visited or lived) a cumulative time of 3 months or more, in the United Kingdom (UK).

My sophomore year study abroad semester did me in. I am a potential mad cow spreader.

So what is the point of a blog, exactly? Especially when you’re only using it to talk? Why would you journal in public? Am I THAT in need of validation? Is it hubris that makes me assume everyone wants to read whatever I have to say?

Yes.

Mostly I think I’m going to be keeping this blog in an effort to write down all those thoughts that swirl in your head while you’re trying to fall asleep except you’re too comfy in bed to bother to get up and write them down at the time. I’m sure many people think that they will sit down and compose daily witty diatribes that somehow connect them into the Sisterhood, attracting the attention of a literary agent who immediately wants to turn their online journal into a chick-lit book deal, a la Carrie Bradshaw, and then they can start doing what they really want, which is writing books titled, “Wolf in Chic Clothing,” the saga of the beautiful and tenacious low-level gofer who aspires to WRITE, if only her devastatingly fashionable dragonlady editor would allow her the time. Meanwhile she meets the only gorgeous man on the planet who isnt a complete player asshole … no, instead he is SENSITIVE, with knowing eyes and a mischievious grin and dimples and dark curly hair and he feeds her lo mein with chopsticks in bed, which even though the sheets are satin, on him for some reason they dont seem sleazy. Gorgeous Non Asshole Sensitive Sleazy-Sheet Guy waits for her to make up her mind and says sensitive things and supports her art. It’s this unconditional love that inspires Total Hack Writer Girl to finish her piece of shit book, publish it, become a cause celebre in New York literary circles, landing a movie deal and making her a bazillionaire and …

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ENDING

A. cause Bitchy Couture Editor to eat crow and fall from social grace.

or

B. cause a now-benevolent Hack Writer Girl to go to Bitchy Couture Editor and say, “You taught me everything I know.” and then they become bestest friends ever, trading makeup secrets and gay personal stylists for all eternity.

The End.

Yes, this is the secret dream of the bloggerwoman.

It’s occurred to me that since setting up this dandy little bloggy thing, I have nothing of consequence to say. When I email someone, I can drone on and on and babble about stupid crap and they probably dont actually read it and assume I am just a lonely old blabbermouth who needs to tell every stinking detail about her day. This is partially true. I may be busy and I may be exhausted most of the time. But I am also a stay-at-home mom. Most of my day is spent talking to NO ONE. No one who can talk back, anyway. I spend my day making up rhyming songs about food and trying to change diapers while my kid contorts himself like a Chinese fucking acrobat without dropping any poo. I will go to the grocery store or Target just to talk to the checkers. Is that not the saddest thing you ever heard? I go to stores so old people will come up and cootchie-coo my baby and then ask me questions about him, so I can talk. When my husband gets home, I regale him with highlights from my day, starting with whoever the celebrity guest was on Sesame Street and whether I got the Final Jeopardy question right.

I will tell you what though, the best celebrity guests on Sesame Street are the non-entertainer ones. Watching UN Secretary General Kofi Annan sing the alphabet song with a bunch of Muppet monsters hugging him is hilarious. Some of the entertainer guest spots are good, though. My two favorites are: REM’s Shiny Happy Monsters song, with a Kate Pierson Muppet, complete with big red beehive, singing backup; and Robert DeNiro, who sits with Elmo and tells him about how he’s an actor and an actor is someone who pretends to be someone else. Elmo says, “What can Mr. DeNiro pretend to be?” (Elmo does not use pronouns) And Bobby D says, “Well, I can be a New York taxi driver. Or an out-of-shape boxer. Or a cabbage.” And Elmo tells him to be a cabbage and DeNiro turns into a cabbage (a Muppet cabbage) and says, “Hi! I’m a cabbage! I’m a great source of riboflavin!”

Riboflavin.

Liam’s big thing these days is “So Big!”. It’s cute enough to make you puke. He doesnt spread his arms out, he raises them over his head and grins from ear to ear, showing all eight of his hard-won teeth. Most of the time he doesn’t even wait for someone to ask how big he is. If he finishes his dinner, up go the hands. So big! If he likes what’s on TV, so big!! Sitting at the top of the slide? So big!!  And when his hands are in the air, he wiggles his fingers. Twinklefingers, I call them (the non-gay cousin of Jazz Hands). So Adam and I exclaim, “SO BIG! How big is Liam? SOOOO BIG!! YAAAAAAYYYY!!!” And then we clap. Now what’s funny is I think Liam thinks the yay and clapping part is how So Big is played. So he’ll raise his arms, do the twinklefingers and then say, “AAAAAYYYYYYYY!!!” and try to clap. He can’t clap. He can only slap his hands up and down and he hits himself in the face when he does it. So he’s yelling, “YAAAYY!!” while slapping himself and blinking.