Here it is, quickly approaching midnight, and I'm in the basement doing laundry. No clean bed sheets, eh, so it had to be done before I could go to sleep. And no, the dirty sheets had nothing to do with me and everything to do with Mak.
Mak.
What should I say about Mak? Should I say that today while in Wally World an elderly woman walking past said to her friend, "Ah, I'm taking that one home with me."
"You'd bring her back," I said to her without even thinking of it.
And bring her back she would, because she's Mak.
She's had a head cold for three days. This usually happens to her when she's cutting teeth, plus she seems to have inherited my allergy problems and it's been rough around here lately. But she's one of those very difficult children when she doesn't feel well.
I was so relieved when Da Man came sauntering in the house last evening just as I was about to have to get her dressed and head to bunco. I wasn't looking forward to taking her with me--at all--because she was in a horrible mood. Whining, crying, snotting. Ugh. Yesterday was a very long and very stressful day for me.
Da Man assured me that he would be fine with her. I banked on that and headed to bunco, and it felt good to have a bit of the "she with two children" weight lifted from my shoulders. But that weight was lurking in the living room doorway last night when I arrived back home.
"Do something with her," Da Man growled as I met him in the hallway. "She has been like this all night."
"Yeah, well, welcome to my hell" was all I could manage to get out of my mouth before she was standing in front of me, snot dripping from her nose, arms stretched above her head, whining, "Maaamaaa." Ugh.
It was after one when she finally fell asleep, and that can be attributed to a couple of different things. First of all, Mak is my girl. She likes everyone else and gets along well with them, but when it comes right down to it, that little ankle biter is attached to my fucking hip. I can't leave the room without her, "Mama? Maaamaaa!" And I don't quite know how to deal with such a thing because I could leave Grace for weeks on end and she wouldn't care too much.
Mak doesn't sleep when Mama ain't home. I had forgotten about that as I was hastily whizzing instructions on how to care for her at Da Man last evening while running around getting ready to leave. And it's not that he doesn't know what to do with kids, because he does, but he doesn't know exactly how I do it with my kids and that fucks with my control issues. *snort*
So I danced the dance with her last night and finally got her to sleep. She woke me this morning, jumping up and down in her crib, singing her little "mama, mama, mama" song. And don't think that Da Man fails to remind me that I was more than a tad bit jealous a couple of months ago when the only word out of the little imp's mouth was "dada," because he seems to have stored that in his otherwise nonexistent short memory.
Mak was doing a bit better today, and I'm hoping that tomorrow will even be a little bit better. I actually found humor in her dickness tonight, much to Da Man's chagrin because he was the recipient of her dickness. Ha. But it was nice to be able to relax enough to appreciate her misbehavior and not-so sunny disposition.
I tell everyone that she will be nicknamed Tank when she hits kindergarten. She's going to be a big one, Mak. And I remind Grace about a hundred times a day that she will always be the older sister but not always the bigger sister. I am trying to prepare her for the ass whooping that Mak is going to lay down on her one day soon.
Mak's such a cute little thing, and I'm not just saying that because she's mine (okay, maybe I am just saying that because she's mine). There's something about her energy that makes people stop and take notice. And that ornery ass little twinkle she has in her eye. She's a tool.
She's the anti-Grace. And I think that's probably a good thing because at least I'll have one daughter that I can relate to. Although I am becoming quite crafty with Grace's newly found infatuation with different hairstyles, it's not something that I really pride myself on, the whole girly girl thing. And I know Mak and I will have something in common along those lines.
I dressed her up last month for that Princess Tea birthday party Grace attended. And yes, I noticed the looks on everyone's faces. Granted, Mak's dress was nice, but she looked like a midget drag queen. And she prefers trucks and cars over dolls and girly things. She damned near knocked the neighbor boy out the other night with the ass end of a Tonka dump truck because he wasn't going to allow her to play with it. She's a brute.
And a brute on speed nonetheless. She never stops walking around. People think I'm pulling on of those "and she had hair out to here" exaggerations when I say she never stops--until they see her in action. Honestly, that child does nothing but walk, eat and sleep. And she's learning to climb, which is just lovely. Not.
Mak.
I could go on and on about her. I had her tattooed the other night at the festival, a nice little tribal band that went around her wrist. Okay, it was intended to go around her wrist but her wrist was too fat it wouldn't wrap all the way around. And it washed off after two baths, but at least she got the fifty cents it cost out of it.
Mak.
I hope she's still sleeping. She seems to have some kind of attachment to me that allows her to know when I creep out down the stairs from the third floor. But at least I get to use the excuse of dirty bed sheets to get me outta there for a bit, eh.