Under Heavy Fire — Please Send Reinforcements

I will begin by saying that I have not showered today. Its not that showering is something I do so very consistently since the birth of our second child but I just thought you should know.

In a desperate attempt to make the long weekend last even longer, Dan and I stayed up until almost 2 in the morning last night, at which point Big-O woke up for his mid-night feeding. I fed him and stumbled back to bed only to be awoken again at 7:30am when Little-C started talking to herself. Both kids got up much earlier than usual this morning so I started the day off exhausted. I was laying like a vegetable on the couch in my long-weekend-messy living room while she watched Sesame Street when some ‘visitors’ came by with a spiritual message for us. The last time they came by was 3 months ago, I was almost a week overdue, laying like a vegetable on the couch in my 9+ months-pregnant-messy house while she watched Sesame Street. I think I have let her watch TV in the mornings a total of 5 times since she was born. Now 2 of those times these people have come by. Not that I care what they think of me as a mother but I’d think someone needed a spiritual message too if every time I went to her house, she was drooling on the couch while her kids turned into TV zombies. After they left, with Big-O down for a morning nap, I went to have a relaxing bath. Little-C begged to join me so I don’t need to tell you how relaxing that turned out to be. Getting out of the bathtub, I pulled a muscle in the arch of my foot and spent the rest of the day unshowered, under-rested and limping like a dork.

I think the limp was the final sign of weakness which sent my two-year-old into a tailspin or two-year-oldishness. She went down for a nap, praise buddha, and shortly after Big-O woke up to play. Since he’s only 3 months old, he doesn’t so much want to “play” as “be played.” I fold him up like a pocket-knife, stick his toes in his mouth and zerb and spit all over him. He is happy. About 10 minutes after he went back down for his afternoon nap, Little-C woke up. Yippee!

The afternoon brought many errands. At the chiropractor, Little-C ran into the corner of a desk with her frontal lobe and got a big bonk-mark on her forehead half-way through my adjustment. It was here that she started begging me for goldfish crackers, of which I had none. Two-year-old logic states that the longer you ask and the more annoying and whiny your tone of voice becomes, the better chance you have of getting what you want, especially if it doesn’t exist. Exiting the building, a rather old and wrinkly woman bent down to ask Little-C’s name and age. Little-C wrinkled her nose with a look of disgust and in one of those moments where I wish she weren’t so darned articulate, asked the woman “You’re not dead yet?”

In the car, keeping with the tone of the day, we learned that if our mother is ignoring our repeated pleadings for goldfish, we can get her attention by letting her know that “my arms came out” of the car seat straps. Hmm….I wonder how that happened as I pull over to put the arms back in the straps and explain that if we do not wear our seatbelts we can get hit by a car and thrown through a windshield and any other manner of horrible things can happen to us.

In the entrance to the bookstore, I was informed that she could no longer wear her right shoe or sock because they made her foot feel “sparkly.” There are some fights worth fighting. This was not one of them so she hobbled through the rest of our errands with one shoe on and one in the diaper bag.

When we got home, Big-O was overdue for a feeding. Little-C begged me not to feed him. She needed to cuddle because….because…..something hurt. “What?” I asked. “Um, um, um…my pants.” “Your bottom?” “No, my pants.” “Ahhhhh. Well, I need to feed Big-O. I’ll cuddle you for as long as you want as soon as I’m done.” Little-C raced to the nursing chair and jumped in, assuring me that we could both fit. I squished in next to her and tried to nurse Big-O. Of course he wouldn’t nurse with her in the chair. As I picked him up to burp him, he spit up all down the back of my neck. As I wiped the cottage cheese off my neck, Little-C got mad that I was taking up too much room on the chair — so I kicked her out. On her way off the chair, she took my lumbar support pillow. When I asked for it back, she threw it on the ground, stomped on it and said, “You don’t NEED this. It’s squishy.” Two-year-old logic strikes again. With a “look” from me, she handed it back.

While I fed Big-O, Little-C got a great idea. “Could I have a hole in the top of my head so I can put on Mrs. Potato Head’s hat?” I assured her that although it would be super-fun to wear all of Mrs. Potato Head’s accessories, it would really hurt if I actually put a hole in her head. “Please.” “Um, no.” So, she did the next best thing, working with the holes already in her head. Once Mrs P’s tongue was lodged in her mouth, she began to gag and choke. In what I thought was an act of mercy, I pulled the piece of pink plastic from her mouth and told her not to put things in there anymore. This was when she invented what will now forever be referred to as the Timber-fit. It involves placing her arms at her sides and falling flat on her face like a felled tree without so much as a bend in her knee. She then proceeds to scream like she’s dying. This is repeated over and over again in front of me until she realizes that I am giving her absolutely no response. Bedtime was quick and early.

While writing this I heard Little-C get out of bed in the other room. Upon further investigation, we found that she was walking around with her pants around her ankles and her diaper off, poop everywhere, carrying a bucket full of toys. “I had yuck-y poop!” she exclaimed. Ya think?