Mak, my darling one-year-old, has been possessed by some sort of demon. She has suddenly been transformed into some screamin', snottin', foot stompin', head bangin', attitudinal, whoo, I'm glad that's not *my* baby little creature.
She's not showing any signs of being ill. After going through my mental checklist of exactly what is up with her, I have decided that it's because I have the windows in the apartment open. What does that have to do with it, you might ask. Well, it's relatively simple: Now the neighbors, and people living in the next town, can hear her screams.
I must be PMSing it again because everything is grating my nerves. Take for instance yesterday:
I was bus aide yesterday afternoon. The trip was pretty uneventful. The only problem I had was with one little girl who was insisting that I unbuckle Grace and leave her at her house. The conversation started as the bus climbed its way up her hill. The conversation continued as her mom was signing her off the bus. And it continued as her mom stood there waiting on her daughter to stop arguing the fact that Grace was not going to be unbuckled and taken to her house. Finally I turned her around and, with my hand on her back, began herding her to the steps of the bus. I said to her mom, "She is insisting that Grace be left here, but I told her that you would freak out if two kids climbed off the bus together because I know I would." I received an "oh" as a response, which left me wondering if the woman would have even noticed that two kids had climbed off the bus.
And maybe the whole thing wouldn't have unnerved me at all if this same little girl hadn't started the conversation miles back with, "My dad found your house," and then folded her hands to participate in a secretive and whispered prayer.
So Grace gets home and trips over a plastic grocery bag that I had painstakingly filled with little tiny scraps of paper that she had sat and cut with my scrapbooking scissors. The scraps went onto the floor and Grace just kept right on walking.
"Hey. Please pick that stuff up and put it back in the bag," I said.
"No, I'm too tired. Cleaning up is boring."
With those words, she managed to unleash that exhausted mother that lives inside me, the one with the picket sign reading "Mom on Strike" always at the ready.
"Yeah, it is boring, and I don't like to do it either, but guess what? I have to do it even though it's not much fun," I said.
Grace merely shrugged her shoulders. And it was one of those "I don't care" shrugs opposed to one of those "I don't know why the side of Mak's face is all red and she is screaming her head off" shrugs.
So I launched into my "how much fun do you think it is for me to crawl around on the floor picking up little tiny scraps of paper/being the only one in the house who seems to hold the knowledge of how to change the cat litter even though I wasn't the one who wanted the damned cat in the first place/ the laundress, the chef, the maid, the butcher, baker, and candlestick maker" speeches.
"Well," said my too sassy for her own good four-year-old, "you're the mom." Toufuckingche'.
I sometimes wonder where I stand intellectually when I have a battle of wits with Grace. Her four-year-old logic sometimes knocks me in the knees, leaving me shortened, stuttering, and stammering as if I have suddenly lost the ability to speak and/or think. And it's at those times that I have visions of myself being knocked to the ground, hands above my head in a defensive pose, as her "but you're wrong because I'm doing the new math" shadow looms over me, bending down to pick out the last remaining morsels of my intellect. I always considered myself a pretty smart chick until I had kids.
I had plans today of heading to Grace's school to hang out for a bit. I have actually had plans to do this all week but it's gotten away from me. My main reason was to drop off some fliers and the empty Maxwell House coffee can complete with glued on pictures of glasses and one large blue eyeball I had made for our community service project of collecting eyeglasses for The Lion's Club. But because Mak is auditioning for the remake of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, I gave up on the dream of heading to school today.
I sent the coffee can and the fliers to school with Grace, much to her dismay. "But, mommy, you're supposed to take it," she whined as we headed down the stairs this morning.
"I know, Grace, but I don't think I want to take your sister to school with me today and there's no one to watch her."
"But, mommy, now I won't get to pass them out to the kids."
"What?"
"Now I won't get to pass them out to the kids," she repeated, whine still intact. "I was going to help you."
It's not easy to walk down a flight of thirteen stairs with an one-year-old on your left hip pulling and tugging on your necklace as if to strangle the breath from you, cup of coffee, cigarettes and lighter in the right hand, justifying yourself to a four-year-old while pulling your anti-guilt armor over your head. But I somehow managed.
I got the armor on just in time too because that little inner motherchild of mine, the one who always has her Super Mom cape at the ready, had already begun rattling off her list of guilt-ridden rationale: "We can get Grace on the bus and Mak fed, straighten and vacuum the living room, take a whore's bath, get ourselves and Mak dressed, and head to school. We'll let Grace get on the bus and beat her home, which will allow us enough time to pass Mak off to daddy so we can get Grace to the eye doc by three. Then we'll have enough time to get home, start supper, get our stuff together for the parent's meeting that starts at six o'clock--Can't forget the parent's meeting; it starts at six o'clock--and spend an hour or so with daddy while eating supper before he leaves for work. We'll leave the dirty dishes alone until we get home from the parent's meeting tonight...."
As for me right now? Mak has been napping for about an hour. I have the beef tips cooking and have done a load of laundry. The living room has been straightened and vacuumed. I haven't gotten around to the looking for my recipe for beef stroganoff or the whore's bath yet, but that will come in due time: Just in time to get Grace off the bus, pass Mak off to daddy, and have Grace at the eye doc by three. Then we'll head home, gather the things for the parent's meeting--can't forget the parent's meeting that starts at six o' clock--and spend an hour or so with daddy while we're eating supper before he leaves for work. I'll leave the dirty dishes alone until I get home from the parent's meeting tonight....