These Are the Days

Days after I post an article about wanting to be helpful to those in need, I need a whole lot of help my damn self. Because this daughter of mine has plucked every single raw nerve. Which isn't unusual, but somehow today it seemed like the pulling and the tugging was more intense, like her purpose was not just to hear a sound but to actually render me numb.

So I will keep this rant pretty short. She had been ultra clingy all morning. My left knee has been swollen. I was up cooking last night. This morning I was doing the sous chef thing to prepare our snacks. I had plans to leave the house by noon, but that didn't happen. I had a few other things going on, including a bit of an attitude about feeling like I'm always offering and giving help but never getting anything remotely close in return.

I was tired. Suddenly it was almost three o'clock. She followed me upstairs to the bathroom. I just wanted half a moment of peace, which she obliged for exactly one moment before she had me in a choke hold. I went back downstairs to clean up all of her damn toys AGAIN. I decided I wanted a hamburger, and since she was still wide awake, I decided to drive to Five Guys. And of course, as soon as we disembarked from the car, she lost her ever-loving mind.

She got her very first public spanking. And yes, I looked like one of those harried radioactive mothers in the grocery store, so everyone looked uncomfortable and concerned as her cries echoed through the plaza. And suddenly I must have grown an extra arm or something because I had scooped her up along with my ginormous Mom bag, her lunch bag, the bag from Five Guys with our remaining fries, and two drinks. Luckily the car wasn't that far away.

And now she's asleep.

Maybe in a few years I will look back on this post and vaguely remember what transpired. Maybe the memory will make me chuckle. She might be beyond choking me with her aggressive hugging. She should definitely be potty trained, able to clean up her own bodily fluids. She probably won't demand that I play the music from her favorite PBS Kids show since she will likely have moved on to something more obnoxious playing from her own device with headphones to ignore me. She's two; soon she'll be twelve with ten years of accumulated antics.

Don't remind me of how quickly time passes because I look at her now and no longer see that sweet-faced baby who never napped when I needed a break. And then I look in the mirror and wonder how my mother managed not to lose it with me (and then I remember that she did, plenty of times and publicly) so then I sigh. And for a brief moment, I allow myself to get lost in some long buried memory of getting popped upside the head for not listening to her...

Well, rant over. She'll be fully recharged soon.