Kewyn wandered into my room last night at 3 a.m., and Arwyn woke up at 4:30 for a feed (rendering my subsequent 5:30 am pumping smucking fuseless) and I was pretty trashed from last night anyway. Mate was late from work which meant that between soccer, karate, and picking Auntie Wendy up and dropping her off from getting her brakes done, I loaded and unloaded the car twice after getting home from work and between feeding the baby, and hauled people around to their established activities. Mate (and Mate is a good guy--he's living proof that if you get'em young and train 'em right, they can reach their full potential in all five of the Mate's Real Purposes For Being) didn't catch on to my full exhaustion last night until I'd bathed and changed and fed the two little ones and was into my full on bitch-extension of "I'm mad at you just because you have to ask why I'm mad at you" mode. He finally did catch on, gave me a good cuddle and spanked the children appropriately because I was just too rats-ass tired to give a crap if the cave troll was up AGAIN at 9:30 at night and if I didn't knit uninterupted for at least 1/2 an hour I was going to be wearing someone's ass for a hat.
I knit, showered, watched ER (excellent...I know I'm showing my age, but I still think that show rocks the troll cave) and got to bed at 11:30, with the subsequent interuptions, and was pretty happy at how well I was handling my morning after that. I may have counted how many pieces of luggage I had to bring out to the car more than twice and I couldn't figure out why the answer five kept coming from, but, hell, I could knit at the stoplights to stay awake, and the baby was babbling adorably the whole commute, so I must have been doing okay.
Except the correct answer for the question "How many pieces of luggage BESIDES the baby does a working mother have to haul into the car before work" is not five. It's six. You doubt me?
1. Purse
2. Knitting bag.
3. Small lunch bag with the baby's expressed milk in it.
4. Large lunch bag with my lunch in it.
5. Breast pump.
6. The Spongebob backpack.
This last is particularly important--it carries diapers, changes of clothes, and the occassional spare toy for both the cave troll and the adorable ladybug and is possibly (may the knitting goddess not strike me down dead for this) more important than the knitting bag. Just maybe.
I forgot the freaking Spongebob backpack. I did--it's big, it's yellow, and it's sitting in my hallway, even as I speak, where it cannot provide diapers and clean clothes for the adorable children who are ALL THE WAY CROSS TOWN FROM WHERE WE LIVE.
In case anybody's wondering, this scares the hell out of me. Not because they can't live without the backpack--I may be hauling Arwyn home wearing nothing but a diaper (Lucia has spares) and her blankie, but babies love that so I think she'll live. What scares me is the lack of coherence I must have had to forget that big, butt-ugly, bright yellow bag. What will I forget next? Will I forget the baby on the curb next to the car? Will I back over the cave troll as he runs out to me because I forgot him? Will I leave the car-seat on the top of the car and take off? We hear these stories all the time--the parents who left the kids in the car overnight when it was cold, or when it was too hot, and just forgot about them. The parents who left their kids to play in the plastic bags when they ran out to talk to a neighbor. All of these tiny things you have to worry about--target bags, pennies, jump-ropes, stroller straps, angry pets, toilet cleaner, hot-dogs, carcinogens, bites that are too big, food that is too salty, brushing the toddler's teeth with the adolescent's orthodontist toothpaste, leaving vitamins on the counter, child-molesters in the neighborhood, bullies at school, bumpandgrind dances, birth control, draftboards,std's, smartbombs, stupid presidents and guns at friends houses and
AAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And how am I supposed to remember all these things, all these dangerous, stupid, dumb, tiny and deadly things when I can't even remember one lousy loud and yellow necessary item like the goddamned Spongebob Backpack?
Parenting is the fucking end on the terror scale, people. Don't let anyone tell you differently.
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6 comments:
uh yeahhhhh...I think I need to stop reading your blog...
Sorry Steph--didn't mean to freak you out like that...(You'll be great--you're already more organized than I am--and you only start with one...)
And yet, in spite of all of this, many people manage to survive into old age. Several of them even become competant adults. Consider the things we got into and got out of and none-the-less turned into adequate human beings. It's OK. Maybe you could leave a change of clothes at the babysitters, just in case, and take a pinch of stress off your quota.
Breathe woman. Breathe. I used to have panic attacks in the middle of the night thinking about all of the dangerous things I'd let my son come in contact with throughout the day. And then one day I realized that he was not sick, or harmed, or dead, or kidnapped, or poisoned, or any of the other innumerable things I'd imagined could have happened to him through my tired inattention. He's fine. And now he's old enough to know what he can and can't touch, what he can and can't eat, with whom he can and can't talk, etc. You can only protect them so much. But you can teach them to protect themselves, and I'm sure you are. The backpack will be there when you get home, and already packed for tomorrow. One less thing you have to worry about in the morning. And like Roxie suggested, I leave a couple changes of clothes and a few extra everythings with the sitter just in case I have one of those days. You're an awesome mother, and your kids know it.
I just checked out your "background file" on Blogger and if you have time (Ha,ha!)and haven't read her yet, you must check out Elizabeth Moon. "The Speed of Dark" is about an autistic man in the near future. Ms. Moon has an autistic son and I'm sure that informed her writing. Also check out her "Paksanarian" (spelling?) series. I read it as an adult and it gave me new ways to think about spirituality and good works. I have checked our local library and they do not have your books (yet!). I see a trip to the bookstore in my future.
I'm still a "new" parent with a 2 year old. You so got the parenting thing pegged. It really sucks a lot of the time.
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