SAHM: 8:30 a.m. Stay in our pajamas for a little while longer because we can. Watch Charlie and Lola and continue to push my breakfast agenda. She is so over breakfast. Breakfast is for the weak.
Drug rep: 9:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. Spend morning trying to convince doctors who already know everything why they should use my drug instead of my competitor’s drug. They pretend to listen while I know they are completely ignoring everything I’m saying.
SAHM: 9:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. Spend morning trying to convince three-year-old who already knows everything why she shouldn’t color on the walls, run with sharp objects, or spill her cereal all over the kitchen floor. She pretends to listen while I know she’s ignoring everything I’m saying.
Drug rep: 12:00–1:00 p.m. Have lunch delivered to doctor’s office so I can have the pleasure of treating office staff and physicians to a free lunch while they complain that they’ve already had Jason’s Deli this week and ask why I didn’t bring more Diet Dr Pepper.
SAHM: 12:00–1:00 p.m. Make peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich; deliver it to three-year-old so I can have the pleasure of making her a delicious lunch while she complains that she’s already had peanut butter and jelly this week and asks why I didn’t give her pink lemonade.
Drug rep: 1:00–2:00 p.m. Take a nap.
(I’m joking. It’s a joke.)
(Everyone knows drug reps don’t take naps from 1:00 to 2:00 because they finish their day by 3:00 and go home and take a nap then.)
SAHM: 1:00–2:00 p.m. Take nap and try to get Caroline to do the same.
(Or at the very least, not to wake me up.)
Drug rep: 2:00–4:30 p.m. Go see more doctors and bring them free samples of drugs while most of them act put out that they must acknowledge my presence. Some of them enjoy asking me difficult questions that I don’t know how to answer, such as the particle size of the LDL and apoB lipoproteins.
Umm, yeah, I majored in speech communications.
SAHM: 2:00–4:30 p.m. Go to the grocery store and buy food for Caroline while she acts put out that she must acknowledge my presence. She enjoys asking me difficult questions that I don’t know how to answer, such as how do watermelons turn green on the outside.
Umm, yeah, I majored in speech communications.
Drug rep: 5:00–bedtime. The day is over, with the exception of an occasional evening when I get to go out on the company’s dime to some of the nicest restaurants in town and eat good food and drink fine wine while listening to some of the most boring presentations known to man.
SAHM: 5:00–bedtime. I still have miles to go before I sleep. Dinnertime, bath time, and bedtime routines. There are chicken nuggets to be eaten, hair to be washed, and stories to be read. I wouldn’t trade it for the best meal in town at the nicest restaurant, even without the boring presentation.
Although the wine would be nice.
Drug rep: Middle of the night. Wake up completely stressed out about how I’m going to grow market share when the only way I’ll be able to convince some of these doctors to write my drug is if they undergo a complete lobotomy.
SAHM: Middle of the night. Wake up completely stressed out about how I’m going to fill all the hours in the next day with meaningful activities that don’t include watching Backyardigans over and over again.
As you can see, in some ways my days weren’t that different. The commonality between being a drug rep and being a mama is that before I actually started being either one, I read a few books. I studied, I learned all I could, I memorized material that could help me in any situation and allow me to answer any question.
But the thing is, only the reality of doing something every day prepares you for what it’s really like. No book can tell you how to make a doctor prescribe your drug, and no book can tell you how to get a toddler to eat her breakfast. It’s all a game of skill and chance. Some days I got it right, and some days I didn’t. Some days I think I’ve got it all figured out, and some days I’m sure I must be the most incompetent person to ever attempt this job.
From my perspective, I’m just thankful that if I’m going to spend my days with someone who ignores half of what I say and acts like she knows better than I do, it’s my daughter. Because for all those moments she is so over me, there are those moments we spend digging for worms, lying on the floor coloring pictures, and playing Go Fish.
Those are moments I wouldn’t trade for anything.
Plus, most of my doctors were terrible at Go Fish.
Chapter 15
Putting the Crazy on Display
Here in San Antonio we have an annual two-week celebration called Fiesta. It allegedly has something to do with Texas’s independence from Mexico, but I think it’s really just an excuse for everyone to take off work and for the socialites to wear crowns and pretend they’re real royalty. There are always parades and various foods served on a stick and coronations and multiple stabbings by angry drunks. Good times.
Caroline’s preschool liked to celebrate Fiesta by having the kids create their very own shoe-box floats. The teachers sent home a note regarding all the Fiesta activities they had planned for the kids. I know it seems that a visit from real, live royalty in the form of King Antonio would be more than enough, but it’s not. A visit from King Antonio would have required little to no parent suffering, which was just not acceptable.
The note went into great detail about how each year the kids make these floats and how it is such an enjoyable experience for the teachers and kids that many parents requested that they be able to make this a family project to be done at home.
Who are these parents?
No one would fess up, for fear of being ostracized from the preschool community.
So while there was technically still the option of having your child make the float at school with the help of the teacher, the implication was that you could either spend hours with glue-and-glitter-coated fingertips or hang your head in shame after essentially admitting you were an uninvolved parent whose child tucked herself into bed each night while you and your husband sipped martinis in the living room.
Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t like to publicize it, but I secretly love a good craft project. The problem is not with the craft in and of itself; the problem is I know it will unleash my OCD tendencies. I know I won’t rest until I have glittered and tissue-papered and decorated within an inch of my life because we all know that three-year-olds have the attention span of a flea in a dog pound, and if I wanted Caroline to pull a float that consisted of more than a shoe box with a Hello Kitty sticker on it, it would be up to me.
I immediately sold Caroline on the idea of a Wizard of Oz–themed float because McDonald’s was giving out Wizard of Oz Happy Meal toys at the time. I envisioned a miniature Oz-themed paradise, complete with darling Madame Alexander Happy Meal figurines standing under a glittered rainbow.
The problem was every time we went to McDonald’s, we got Dorothy or the Munchkin. No Wicked Witch, no Tin Man, no Scarecrow. I hated to be high maintenance at McDonald’s (which is fairly ironic, considering it doesn’t really bother me to be high maintenance anywhere else) and ask for a specific Happy Meal toy. I just kept playing the drive-thru like I was at a craps table in Vegas, hoping my luck would change.
As the due date for the shoe-box float drew near, I realized I was in trouble. First of all, I had four Dorothys and two Munchkins. Then when I dropped Caroline off at school a few days before the floats were required to be in, I saw a few of the other finished floats on display. These floats belonged to the kids whose parents had relinquished float-making duties to the teachers because they were much smarter and more aware of their issues than I was. When I saw how good those floats looked and noticed that one even included Spiderman scaling a skyscraper, I began to hyperventilate just a little. Something inside me kicked in, and I knew it was time to bring my float-making A game.
OCD is real, people. It is a sickness.
After I left Caroline at school, I immediately drove to Michaels to
secure the materials I would need to make the best float ever. I bought colored tissue paper, foam board, decorative flowers, and enough glitter to outfit a chorus line of Vegas showgirls. The missing link was the other characters required to complete my Wizard of Oz masterpiece.
Then, as if in answer to prayer, Gulley called and said she was taking Will to ride the train and pick up a Happy Meal at McDonald’s. I hate to use the word beg because it sounds so desperate, but yes, I begged her to request the girl toy in the Happy Meal and, if she wouldn’t mind, to please specify that she’d like a Wicked Witch or a Tin Man.
So while I hated to appear high maintenance at McDonald’s, I had no problem asking my best friend to not only ask for a specific toy but to cheat her son out of a Happy Meal toy. But he was only two, and I justified it by telling myself he wouldn’t know the difference and, if he did, I’d pay for the therapy.
Gulley called me about twenty minutes later with news. And it wasn’t good. The McDonald’s closest to us had run out of all Wizard of Oz characters and instead was offering My Little Ponies.
There was no way I was giving up on the Wizard of Oz float just because some moron at McDonald’s didn’t order enough Happy Meal toys. Don’t try to pawn off your My Little Ponies on me, high school boy. Everyone knows those are left over from the last giveaway.
I am embarrassed to admit that I called a few other McDonald’s locations looking for the Wizard of Oz figures and finally secured a Scarecrow. I actually had the girl hold it for me (so much for not being high maintenance) and went and picked it up.
I realize I am in need of professional help.
That night I wrapped the shoe-box float with green paper, made a yellow brick road out of glitter, and placed Dorothy and the Scarecrow on top. (Yes, Caroline was asleep in bed for all of this. What? Like she was going to help with her own float?) I quickly realized I needed a Tin Man and a Lion. I searched through the playroom and found a lion left over from some other Happy Meal. Granted, this lion didn’t look like he needed much courage because he was striking a jujitsu pose, but he’d do. Then, in a flash of brilliance, I decided to turn one of the Munchkins into a Tin Man using some foil. I got out the Reynolds Wrap and went to town. I posed the Lion and the Munchkin Tin Man next to Dorothy and Scarecrow and went to bed.
The next morning Perry walked in the kitchen, looked at the float, and asked, “What does a foil alien baby have to do with The Wizard of Oz?”
He is a gem.
Finally, after too many hours of cutting, glittering, and gluing, the float was finished. As I carried it into Caroline’s classroom that Thursday, I started to worry that maybe I had done too much. Maybe my OCD had gotten completely out of control. Maybe my float would be so good that other parents would be embarrassed about their own paltry efforts.
But as soon as I arrived and placed the shoe box in the lineup with the other creations, I realized that while the Wizard of Oz float was a valiant effort, it was by no means the best float in the parade. These parents took their floats seriously. Very seriously. As opposed to me, who was so completely normal about the whole thing.
Which made me think we might all be like the Scarecrow and in search of a brain. Or at least something else to do with all the time we apparently had on our hands.
The whole experience was a turning point for me. I can laugh about it now, but at the time I was overwrought. It was a lesson in trusting my own instincts concerning my daughter. Just because you feel pressure from other people about the way something should be done, it doesn’t mean it’s the best thing. Sometimes you simply have to go with your heart and believe you know your child better than anyone else does.
And that there comes a time when you should just slap a Hello Kitty sticker on a shoe box from Payless and call it good.
Chapter 16
Lifestyles of the Sick & Feverish
Years ago when I started working as a pharmaceutical sales rep, people warned me that I was about to be sicker than I’d ever been in my life. Sitting in all those doctors’ waiting rooms was the equivalent of hanging out in a giant petri dish with nothing but bad carpeting and an aquarium to entertain you during a ninety-minute wait, they warned. And while I did have my share of coughs and colds during those years, those bugs pale in comparison to the illnesses I have lived through in my tenure as a mother.
There’s a lot of talk in the news about homegrown terrorists, specifically the threat of bioterrorism. Well, I hate to be a fearmonger, but if those terrorists really want to take down an entire country, they can find everything they need in the classrooms at the local preschools.
Now, I will admit I’m a bit of a germophobe. I cringe when someone drinks out of my glass, and although I try to act all Whatever, I am so casual and cool with this when someone uses my fork to try a bite of my food, everything inside me is screaming, Alert! Alert! Bacteria! Bacteria!
Perry and I have some good friends we used to go fishing with on a regular basis. Actually, they fished. I really just held a fishing pole while working on my tan and thinking about new ways to fix my hair. Anyway, Kevin is a total germ freak. As in, he makes me look normal and well adjusted. He doesn’t even like it when his wife drinks out of the same beverage after him. The thing is, when you’re out fishing in a boat all day, everyone usually just throws their Gatorade back in the cooler and does their best to grab the one that belongs to them each time they need a drink.
But Kevin always marked his Gatorade. Because he didn’t want to risk sharing germs even with the woman he has vowed to love forever. And so we all respected his Gatorade ways and made sure we avoided his bottle.
One afternoon we had been out in the boat all day. It was hot and still, and I think we’d caught maybe two fish among the four of us. I didn’t really care because my tan was looking marvelous, but everyone else was getting a little cranky.
About that time Susan pulled an apple out of the cooler and began to eat it. When she finished, she took that slobbery, wet apple core and chucked it right at him as she yelled, “Apple core! Baltimore!” Perry and I watched in horror as that nasty apple core hit him right in the side of the face.
It was one of those moments in my life that I’ll always relive in slow motion. If there was ever a time I’d considered jumping into the dark, scary ocean and swimming for shore, this was it. Perry and I wanted to disappear.
Kevin looked up, wiped the slobber from his face, and yelled, “What on earth did you do that for? What were you thinking?” And, realizing she’d just made a huge tactical error, Susan mumbled, “Don’t you remember that game ‘Apple core! Baltimore!’ where you throw an apple core at someone?” Unfortunately, she was the only one who’d ever heard of that particular game. Which is understandable because you have to admit it’s a horrible premise for a fun-filled activity.
Anyway, that happened at a point in my life when I wasn’t nearly as paranoid about germs, but now that I’ve reached my current level of neurosis, I can fully appreciate the horror of a spit-covered apple core hitting you in the face. Sometimes there just isn’t enough sanitizer.
The thing is, when you first bring your baby home from the hospital, you’re hypervigilant about everything. Everyone who walks through your door has to be hosed down with antibacterial gel. You invest in bleach and boil pacifiers. You see everyone as one big mass of bacteria waiting to infect your precious baby. My friend Jamie boiled the plastic toys lining her son’s ExerSaucer until the little puppies and dinosaurs were nothing but misshapen blobs. Basically, you turn into a total freak. You’re like Howard Hughes but in sweatpants and a nursing bra.
Eventually I realized that pacifiers can be boiled only so many times and that if Caroline could survive being kissed on the lips by the dog, then she could probably withstand a little dirt on the baby spoon she’d just dropped on the floor for the fifteenth time in four minutes. Not to mention she had a real penchant for gumming the handle of the grocery store shopping cart every time I turned my back. It was like she w
as determined to contract the plague in spite of all my best efforts.
But she was born with a strong immune system and never really got sick as a little baby. Yes, there were a few stuffy noses that required those blue sucker bulbs of torture, but no fevers or anything some little saline nose drops couldn’t cure.
Until she started preschool.
Or as I call it, the all-inclusive germ resort. Where else do people believe it’s totally acceptable to take the toy out of your friend’s mouth and put it in yours? Or that playground sand is the perfect snack item when you get a little peckish before lunch?
It was a memorable Thanksgiving when Caroline came down with her first real illness. I was a little annoyed because she refused to eat any of her Thanksgiving lunch, and who refuses to eat Thanksgiving lunch? It’s the Super Bowl of food. I mean, I would have understood if she just didn’t want turkey, because I have my own various issues with poultry, but no broccoli-rice casserole? No dressing and gravy? No chocolate icebox pudding for dessert? How can this child have come from my body?
But shortly after lunch was over, I stretched out on the leather couch at Mimi and Bops’s house to take a postlunch catnap. And that’s when Caroline toddled over to me, climbed right up and lay on my overstuffed stomach, put her face right by mine, and said, “Mama? My mouth feels funny.”
All I managed to say was, “What do you mean, your . . . ?” before her little body made a heaving motion and I found myself covered in throw-up. It was all over both of us. In our hair, on our clothes, all over the couch. And I thought, Well, it will clearly be easier to just set ourselves on fire than attempt to clean this up.
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