The 3 a.m. Cold Cock

I had a little incident last night that further cemented my belief that God created us and He created us perfectly and He took extra special care to design our Parental Motherboards to function even when we are sleep deprived or fed up with it all. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know that Olivia isn't a great sleeper. Well, actually, she's a crappy sleeper. She hates sleep. 

Bed time around here usually consists of her and I falling asleep in my bed to some animated film on Netflix after which Mike comes in and moves her to her bed. Around 3 a.m. when I'm in the most wonderful dream phase, she will come barreling through the house, screeching like she is on fire, yelling and crying "MMMMMMMMMMMOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!" 

Now, lest you think we routinely switch bedrooms to throw her off our scent, let me assure you we do not. We sleep in the same room. Every night. Our bed is in the same place in that room. Every night. The floor plan of our house does not shift by the day or hour. The same hallway leads from her room to ours. Every night. 

And yet, every night, she comes out of her room, bed head hair flying in the wind and she sprints through the house as though she is being chased through an obstacle course. She nearly collides with walls and doors and furniture, all the while screaming my name as though she believes she has been abandoned in the wilds of suburbia. 

In my pre-parent life, upon hearing a sound like the screeching of a tribe of banshees, I would have grabbed the nearest weapon and thrown myself on the ground in a ninja-like pose, ready to strike down the creatures who had invaded my bedroom and my precious, precious sleep. But, alas, my Parental Motherboard comes to life and instead of becoming a Slayer of Banshees, I move over to the middle of the bed, throw back the covers, and in a sleep slurred voice say as nicely as possible at 3 o'clock in the f-ing morning, "It's okay sweetie, come lay down with Mommy." My sweet girl makes her way to our bed like the steel ball in a pinball machine, bumping into whatever is in her way. She lays down beside me, I wipe the tears from her cheeks, she snuggles against me, and just as I start to drift back off to sleep, she sweetly says, "Mommy, I want some water..." And instead of saying, "AWWWWWWW, HELLL NO!!!" I feel my body being propelled through the kitchen. I watch as my hands skillfully fill a glass of water in the dark. And never am I actually fully awake. 

Last night though, last night my Parental Motherboard nearly went into meltdown mode. 

Last night after the banshee attack and the water, I drifted back off into sweet dreamland. Obviously though I fell asleep, not in my comfy bed but in a mixed martial arts octagon. Weird conclusion? Well, what would you have thought if you had awoken to a kidney kick and a headbutt into the bridge of your nose? Yep, that's right. My sweet child, the fruit of my womb, had reared up in her sleep and brought her skull (which is apparently made of marble) crashing into my nose. I woke up gasping and convinced that I was being attacked by a team of WWE contenders. 

If you had asked me pre-parenthood what I would have done if I got headbutted in my sleep, I probably would have told you that whoever or whatever did it, would have been decapitated. I would have told you that my inner Chuck Norris would have come out and I would have to lay down a serious a$$ whoopin' on whoever caused me such horrid pain in the middle of an f-ing dream. 

And though my animalistic fight syndrome (Yeah, I know, it's supposed to be fight or flight but I'm pretty sure my genes never really got a good dose of the "flight" part) had to be wrestled back into it's cage like a snarling and angry mountain lion, my Parental Motherboard kept clicking away to keep me from going bat S&*T crazy, all while checking my nose for blood. 

I got out of bed, said "I QUIT" and walked out of the room. Olivia laid there with Mike screaming for me to come back but I calmly walked to the guest room, shut the door to block out the screaming, and went back to sleep. Where I dreamed of a place where there are king sized beds to be slept in all alone without crazy WWE Banshees causing bodily harm to me at 3 o'clock in the mother flippin' morning. I feel a *little* bad about abandoning Mike to the Abusive Banshee but it was like a war zone in there. I cannot be held responsible for my actions at 3 a.m. I'm pretty sure there are laws and stuff about not being held accountable when you are under duress. And duress I was under, people! 

Tonight though, I will be prepared for the insanity. But if you just so happen to come to my house (for emergency purposes only) at 3 a.m., don't be surprised when I answer the door in full football garb--helmet and all. 

Cookin' with The Boss Lady

During mine and Mike's engagement, Mike's Aunt Helen and his cousin, Shannon, hosted a beautiful wedding shower for me at this wonderful tea room here. It's one of those charming tea rooms that has antiques everywhere and old black and white photos of brides in ornate frames propped up all over the rooms. The food is incredible too and I remember being so very, very excited to have a shower there. 

I was fortunate to have several showers and celebrations around my wedding but this one sticks out to me because tonight I used a very special gift that I received from Helen and Shannon at that shower. They had asked each guest to bring a favorite recipe and they included those recipes in a book for me to use in my new life as a married woman. Shannon and Helen are incredible cooks and they included some of their faves. Other family members included old family recipes and I cannot express how much I love this cookbook. Mike and I come from a long line of incredible cooks so it is full of deliciousness. When I received it, I was so excited to try out the many recipes and I felt honored to be able to carry out a legacy of good cooking. I imagined making many of the dishes and I looked forward to a day when I would be mixing up the cookie recipe with my own family.

The wonderful cookbook!

When I found out I was pregnant with a little girl just 3 short years ago, I just *knew* she and I would be in the kitchen together baking pies or making the pancake recipe my mother-in-law included in the book that she and my father-in-law used to make with Mike and his brother. 

Then I had my sweet girl and instead of scraping cake batter from a bowl into a freshly greased pan, I was scraping poop off my hands and trying desperately to keep my eyes open despite overwhelming exhaustion. There were days when I wondered where my picture-perfect vision of motherhood had gone and where in the hell it had come from in the first place. Was I delusional? Why did I ever think I'd be rolling out pie crust with a baby? I barely had time or energy to shower, much less make a damn pie crust. 

I still used the cookbook many times over the past couple of years but have usually had to rush through each recipe before The Boss Lady needed me to do something else for her. Lately though, Olivia has expressed a big interest in cooking and she always wants to help make dinner or breakfast or whatever it is we are doing. She wants to pour things in the bowl and stir and she loves standing in a chair at the counter to watch. Olivia's curiosity about cooking helped bring my dream like visions of cooking with my daughter to fruition tonight.  

We had some old bananas and I wanted to turn them into banana bread. I told Oli I was going to make some and she asked if she could help. Though it was bath time I thought we'd give it a shot. We got out the cookbook and opened it to my mother-in-law's banana bread recipe. She pulled up a chair and started helping me mix up the ingredients. She handed me utensils like an experienced sous chef. She mixed and poured and even helped do the dishes after. True story. 

She's helped before but there's usually some whining or distraction involved but tonight she truly, truly helped and enjoyed doing it! As we folded flour into eggs, she and I talked about our names and how we have the same middle name and how neat that is. We talked about how my name is Stephanie AND Mommy and that really blew her mind. And the whole time I felt like I was in Heaven being in the kitchen with my daughter making banana bread and talking. There was no temper tantrum or insanity and I remembered my visions from long ago of enjoying this wonderful cookbook with my own daughter. And it was actually happening! 

There are a lot of nights around here that are chaotic and there are a lot that are fun but this night, this night was THAT picture for me of Motherhood. This was that picture I had in my head way before I had a kid, way before I realized that parenthood is actually a lot of work. This was that crap you see on some cake mix commercial where everyone looks happy and wonderful and you wonder how the mom in the commercial isn't losing her mind with three kids and them throwing cake batter all over the place and how has she managed to say so thin after three kids so you know she can't possibly be eating the damn brownies and anyway you get the point. And aside from the fact that I was wearing sweatpants, we could have been in that friggin' commercial tonight! 

So now I've got to go because my oven timer just went off. Which means I have fresh pan of chocolate chip banana bread waiting for The Boss Lady and me. Maybe I'll get lucky and be like that mom in those commercials and not gain an ounce from eating the fruits of my labor. It's cool if I do though. After all, I am still wearing the sweatpants...

Stirring up the bananas

Yes, she actually wanted to wash the dishes!

If Mama ain't happy...

I didn't have plans to post anything tonight but I had to share this because it cracked me up:

When I got home tonight, I greeted Mike and Oli as usual and we started making dinner. Mike informed me that he and Olivia had had a great chat on the way home about good behavior and being a good listener. Oli confirmed this by saying "Tonight I get to take a bubble bath!" I felt so happy that he had talked with her to help make tonight a little better. 

As the night has gone on, she's been getting more and more "testy." Not bad, just testy. Tonight definitely is going better than last night but I can just tell that we are about to end up in a scene from Gremlins any minute. At any rate, she started to throw some goldfish crackers on the ground and when she refused to pick them up I asked, "Are we going to have a repeat from last night?" 

Mike was in another room working and overheard this and came in. He asked what was going on and I showed him. He's been hanging on to every word between Oli and me this evening and I thought that was kind of strange. I'm sure psych patients are watched this closely. Again, I felt so happy that Mike was really keeping an eye on Olivia and her behavior. So when I told him that Olivia was throwing things around the kitchen he asked her, "Do you remember what we talked about today?" She nodded her head in agreement. "We talked about how you need to keep mom happy. If mommy isn't happy, none of us will be happy." 

"IS THAT WHAT YOU 'CHATTED' ABOUT THIS EVENING???" 

He smiled and nodded at me, clearly proud of himself. At first I felt a little offended. WHY would The Boss Lady's behavior the night before suddenly be about me and keeping me happy? Why couldn't her good behavior tonight just be because not acting like a psycho is the right thing to do? Why should Oli and Mike have to cater to me to keep me from losing it? I'm not the one who was throwing myself on the floor and screeching like a banshee for half an hour last night. I mean, I'm not sayin' I've never done it. I'm just sayin' it wasn't me last night. That's beside the point though. I felt a little like I was being treated like I was the unstable one and somehow if I was "unhappy" then all hell would break loose. The whole night I thought he was watching her for signs of insanity but I'm pretty sure now he was watching me!!!!  

But then I thought about it: If THEY think THEIR happiness is contingent upon MY happiness, this is really a Win for me. Big time. So instead of saying to Mike and Oli all that I was thinking in the paragraph above, I just looked at both of them lovingly, smiled, and said, "Damn straight. And don't forget it." 

New Family Motto: If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. 

The Ugly Truth

Tonight, I had plans to post about Easter and Lent and my Lenten Resolution and how I kinda/sorta/not really succeeded and what I learned during the Easter season (maybe I'll post it later this week, who knows). Instead, I'm sitting here crying and watching old episodes of The Bachelor. Weird, I know.

My day didn't start out like this though. Here's the short (ha! yeah right!) version of how it all went down:

This morning, I decided to stay home with Oli and take her to the doctor. I knew she hadn't been feeling well but couldn't pin point what it was. She wasn't running a fever but something just wasn't right. The doc couldn't get her in until after 1:30 so we spent the morning just hanging out at home. She watched Barney while I finished laundry, packed up some of her old clothes and shoes, and even cleaned the fridge. We ran an errand and even made it to the doc on time.

Turns out my sweet girl has a double ear infection. Oli isn't your typical sick kid. She isn't all snuggly or mellow when she's sick. Really the ONLY reason I knew she was sick is because she's told me she has a headache for the past couple of days and she slept until after 8:30. Other than that, she was laughing and running around and just as chatty as usual.

As a pick-me-up for her, we stopped for frozen yogurt after we picked up her antibiotic. We sat outside on a park bench and enjoyed the gorgeous weather before heading home. We went home, got her tricycle and headed to the park. We played for about 30 minutes before Mike came by to pick us up. I was looking forward to a night of dinner and some more one-on-one time with The Boss Lady since Mike had to work later.

I made dinner while Mike worked and Oli played. She helped me a cook a little and then asked to color. I got out her markers and she colored while I finished dinner. We talked about how she would take a bubble bath after dinner and how we would watch  a movie together in bed to end the night. She eventually went on the patio to ride her bike and, when dinner was ready, I asked her to pick up her markers so we could eat dinner. She refused. I asked again. She just stared at me and refused.

I decided to change tactics. I threatened that she would start to lose her privileges if she didn't cooperate. I gave her to the count of 3 to pick up the markers or she would lose the bubble bath. She refused.  I informed her that the bubble bath was gone.

"I WANT TO TAKE A BUBBLE BATH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" 

she screamed. 

I reiterated that it was too late for that. I told her that she had until the count of 3 to pick up the markers or she would lose her movie. I counted to 3. She refused to move. I told her that the movie was gone. 

"I WANT TO WATCH A MOVIE AND TAKE A BUBBLE BATH!!!!" 

Again, I told her she had until the count of 3 to pick up the MOTHER FLIPPIN' MARKERS (Okay, I didn't say it like that but I was thinking it.) or she would go to time out. I think at this point, she figured that since I was reinforcing my stance, she would reinforce hers,

"I WANT TO TAKE A BUBBLE BATH!!!"

I picked her up, put her in her room, and told her she could come out when her behavior improved. I tried to enjoy my dinner on the patio while my child lost her shit in her bedroom but I was just cringing inside between screeches. It was awful. Though Mike was working, he was working from home and he tried to help but nothing could be done short of divine intervention. And I'm pretty sure God has more of a lesson in mind for me where this is concerned than He does for her so that wasn't gonna happen. 

For the next 30 minutes we listened to Oli completely freak out, kicking and screaming at the top of her lungs. She would occasionally come out of her room and scream at us. We have adopted a zero tolerance policy around here so I explained to her that as soon as she ate dinner (because she had to eat because of this damn antibiotic she's now on) she would put on her pj's and go to bed. She eventually calmed down enough to sit down to eat dinner.

Dinner became a new opportunity for her to "earn" her way back into our good graces. Or so she thought. She kept batting her sweet eyelashes at me. She even said, "I want to pull it together." I had to explain to her though that it was too late for that and she still had to go to bed after she ate. That brought a fresh onslaught of tears and pouting. It took her about 30 minutes to eat dinner. It was excruciating. 

Afterward, we put her in her pj's, put her in bed, and explained that we could try again. She asked for a few extra hugs and repeated, "I have good behavior tomorrow." 

Then I came out and cried. Because tomorrow seems like it doesn't matter. Tomorrow I will be at work all day and who knows if I'll even be able to cuddle and watch a movie with her at the end of the night. Who knows if I'll even have the energy to do it. Tomorrow won't have been a nearly perfect day with The Boss Lady. 

TODAY is the day I wanted to remain intact, dammit! I am so heartbroken about the way this day ended. I get so few GREAT days with Oli A and I just feel sad and pissed off that this day ended so freaking crappy. 

Sometimes this motherhood gig SUCKS. I am trying so hard to tow the line with Oli when it comes to discipline. I want her to understand that we mean what we say and aren't full of empty threats. I don't want to be that parent that constantly threatens but doesn't follow through. I can't even stand making the threat in the first place. Mike and I just decided that instead of telling her multiple times to do something, we are just going to say it once and follow through with a consequence. We've been doing pretty good with that and it seems to be very effective with Oli but it really, REALLY SUCKS. 

It sucks because when we have to actually take away fun things like bubble baths and movie cuddle time, it takes away fun for me too! It's not just that she's missing out, WE are missing out. I am really sad that I am typing out all of this craziness instead of snuggling up with my girl while we watch some movie I could probably recite and act out myself because I've seen it so many times. 

This though is the ugly, raw truth of parenthood. Sometimes it just sucks. Sometimes even I get disappointed. As I sat with Oli finishing her dinner, she kept asking if she could have her privileges back and I just started crying because I wanted *so bad* to just say "Okay, fine, let's just apologize and move on." But I just knew I couldn't. Because that crazy temper tantrum psycho behavior is just unacceptable.

So, yeah, I guess there's tomorrow. But tonight, I'm really sad and it sucks.