For the first two years of his life, the poor boy never owned a new toy. In fact, for his first birthday, I simply replaced all of the batteries in the toys he’d been playing with his entire life and it was like I had infused the house with magic. The toys actually lit up? And sang? And moved? He was spellbound. It was absolutely pathetic. To this day, he remains the easiest to please of my children, literally jumping for joy over matching pajamas.
There certainly are pros and cons to being the first, the middle, and the last of my children, and their personalities have been shaped, in no small part, by the kind of mother I was to them. Lily gets distraught when her smallest achievements aren’t applauded and her creations aren’t immediately hung for display, clearly a result of my early enthusiasm and encouragement. Ben tends to roll with the punches, much like he did as an easy-to-please little infant. And Evan is very much a last child, constantly performing and clowning around, desperate to get some attention of his very own. But they’re all well loved and well cared for and that’s what really matters at the end of the day.
Well, except for Penelope. She really does need that bath.
Chapter 8
SUBJECTIVELY REVOLTING
Mommy Confessions
• There was a round, brown pellet on the floor. I assumed it was an oddly shaped chocolate chip, but I sniffed it to be sure. Thank God, because it wasn’t chocolate at all.
• I’m going on day three without a shower. Sadly, I’m not even dying to take one.
• One of my kids dropped a lollipop on the floor of the grocery store and began to pitch an unholy fit. Just to shut my child up, I picked up the pop, stuck it in my mouth to suck off all the grocery store floor crud, and gave it back.
• I encourage my kids to bite their nails so I don’t need to cut them.
• When my son peed the bed in the middle of the night I was so tired that I just put newspaper down. He never forgave me for that. Hopefully, when I get old, I’ll piss my bed and he’ll have to deal with it.
• My pediatrician has told me not to, but I just can’t help digging ear wax out of my son’s ears. It’s addictive.
• I suck on my daughter’s pacifier to “clean” it off. Not sure it’s getting any cleaner, but it makes me feel better.
• I feed my husband food that’s fallen on the floor. I figure it’s his fault for telling me not to waste money.
• I lost the nose sucker thing and had to suck a booger out so the kid could breathe. I didn’t realize what I had done until I spit the booger out and told my husband. He said, “You’re a mom now. That’s part of the job.”
• I still wipe my eight-year-old’s bottom. It’s so much better than dealing with the skid marks if he does it himself.
• My daughter threw up in my hair last night. I still haven’t washed it out.
• I don’t think my five-year-old son has been wiping. Oh well. Saves toilet paper.
• I noticed after the diaper change was over and the wipes weren’t in reach that there was a little poop on my hand. I just rubbed it off on my jeans and went on with the day.
No matter how well groomed and well coiffed a woman might be before she has children, she transforms into something entirely different as soon as she becomes a mother. Something resourceful. Something impressive. Something . . . disgusting. Motherhood just has a way of stripping away all the girly glamour we try so hard to exude and reverts us back to how I imagine our cavewoman ancestors lived—mud on the face, raccoons for lunch, urine for hydration.
It’s part of what bonds us, I think—the grossness.
Mothers think nothing of using saliva to clean our little ones’ faces or openly smelling their bottoms to determine whether they’ve indeed defecated. If our kids swallow a penny, we will weed through their poop to ensure the coin has actually come out the other end, and we will catch vomit with our bare hands if necessary. We pluck off cradle cap from their tiny heads and find deep satisfaction in extracting a dried booger from their noses. Some moms, me included, find it safer to just bite the fingernails of their newborns rather than use scissors, terrified of accidentally cutting their tiny fingers. It’s gross, sure, but we have to do it . . . who the hell else would?
I’m a bit of a contradiction where the nasty stuff is concerned. Despite not thinking twice about wiping a wet nose with my bare hands or being kissed on the mouth by a drooly toddler, I just won’t do certain things. Drinking after my children, for instance. If Evan and I were on a desert, alone, and the only thing to quench my thirst for miles was a water bottle of which he’d consumed half, I’d rather die of dehydration than sip from that nasty-ass bottle. The child has given me a new appreciation for the word “backwash.” I swear, half of what he’s consumed for the day comes back up and floats around in his beverage in the form of tiny white flecks. It’s revolting.
I know of many moms who habitually finish the food that their kids leave on their plates. Now, I certainly understand why some moms do the occasional grazing on food left on their kids’ plates, but I’ve seen what my kids do to their dinners, and it’s the most unappetizing thing in the world. They lick things and sneeze on things and mush them up and push them around, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to be snacking on that shit. Even if I am actually hungry.
Another thing I would never dream of eating? My placenta. Of course, you’re thinking, right? I mean, who in her right mind would dream of eating such nastiness? But people do. It’s, like, a thing. Women do everything from encapsulating their placentas into vitamins (I wouldn’t do it, but at least it doesn’t make me dry heave) to mixing them into smoothies (berry surprise, anyone?) to actually chomping on them raw (OMG, hold me; I may never eat red meat again).
I was disgusted enough when the nurse asked me whether I wanted to take the thing home and bury it, but eat it? Raw, even? Apparently, it’s supposed to help minimize bleeding and depression, in a holistic, crunchy (and unproven) way. For me, I don’t think there are many things more depressing than eating an organ that helped in waste elimination and gas exchange for nine months of my life, even if it did also feed my unborn child. If I had to bleed a little more because my placenta ended up in the biohazard box, so be it. I have no doubt that that’s where mine belonged.
And despite my enthusiasm for protecting and preserving our environment, you won’t find me washing out my reusable maxi pad or laundering cloth diapers. Is it horrible to admit that I might be willing to shave a few hundred years off of Earth’s life just to add a few moments of sanity to mine?
Now excuse me while I go dig out some ear wax from my son’s ear.
That’s the kind of gross I can handle.
Chapter 9
THERE ARE NO SICK DAYS IN MOTHERHOOD
Mommy Confessions
• Sometimes, I wish I’d catch the flu just so I could stay in bed all day.
• My husband got a stomach bug and dropped thirteen pounds in a week. All I got was an extra kid to take care of.
• I constantly fake menstrual cramps.
• Last week, my husband was so sick we had to get a sitter at 10:00 p.m. for our sleeping child and go to the ER. We were there for FOUR HOURS. The verdict? A cold. Take some Advil. We spent four hours in the ER for a cold. Jesus.
• I called in sick for work, took the kids to day care, saw an afternoon movie, and got my nails done. Best day EVER.
• My husband moans, loudly and incessantly, when he’s sick. I’m not kidding. “Ehhhhhhhhh . . . mmmmmmmmmmmm . . . uhhhhhhhhhhh . . .” The first time he did it, I thought he was messing around. He wasn’t. It makes me crazy.
• I hate the smell of my kids when they are sick.
• I lock myself in the bathroom and act like I have diarrhea, but really I am sitting in there reading magazines and playing on my phone. My husband keeps pestering me to see a gastroenterologist.
• I’m sick and all I want is for my mommy to come and take care of me. I’m forty-seven.
• I love whe
n my kids are sick and I don’t have to feel guilty for letting them watch constant TV and never leave the couch.
• Motherhood is having your toddler throw up nasty fake-grape-smelling Pedialyte in your hair, lay her head down on your shoulder, and say, “I want Daddy.”
I often fantasize about going back in time in my shiny silver DeLorean and passing on some words of wisdom to my pre-mommy self. Of course, that selfish bitch probably wouldn’t listen to a thing I had to say, since she thought she knew everything, but I’d try nonetheless. I’d tell her to sleep in later on the weekends, because once she has kids, she’ll never sleep well again. I’d tell her to flaunt those spider vein–free legs, use more moisturizer, and deep condition more often. I’d tell her to eat her meals slowly, savoring every bite, because soon food will be consumed out of necessity rather than pleasure. But most important, I would tell her to run to the nearest public restroom and lick the doorknob, or walk up to a sniffly stranger at the coffee shop and inhale his sneeze, or take public transportation and stand uncomfortably close to coughing passengers. However she possibly could, I would tell her to soak up all the airborne germs she could get her healthy little body on. Get sick, girlfriend, I would say. And then milk it. Because once you become a mom, you’ll never be able to get sick again.
Of course, mothers get sick. In fact, we are constantly sick. How could we not be? We are surrounded by snotty children who are walking diseases for a good portion of the year. They bring home sicknesses we’ve never heard of from school and from playdates. Winter months are spent wiping snot-filled noses with our long sleeves, until, eventually, we give up and just wear tank tops. The pediatrician’s office becomes our home away from home and the pharmacists know us by name. I don’t think I have felt 100 percent healthy since Lily was born. It’s always something—either a small case of the sniffles or a pounding headache or a full-blown stomach bug. I can’t recall what it felt like to get a good night’s sleep, and I’ve just become accustomed to the dull pain in my shoulders and to operating at less than optimal performance level. Children are just synonymous with sickness.
If life were fair, being sick would be the one time a mother could catch a break, the rare instance when she’d be granted time off from the routine of waking up too early and running around after other people and not having a moment to herself. She’d be able to rest for a change. Sip chicken noodle soup, even if she had to make it herself and take a steamy shower alone. Do the necessary things to get better. But, unfortunately, nothing’s fair in parenthood and there are simply no sick days in motherhood. Ever.
Fathers are entirely different. When fathers are sick, they have the luxury of once again becoming children, except instead of their own mothers caring for them, their lucky wives get assigned to the task. There’s a reason why the line “in sickness and in health” sneaks into those wedding vows—I can think of no better reason to leave a man than for the way he copes with sickness. Now, I love my husband. I truly believe we are soul mates, my life wouldn’t be complete without him, he is the love of my life and all that crap, but when he’s sick? I have visions of stabbing him repeatedly with sharp kitchen utensils and making a run for it with our children.
When Jeff has a cold, it’s as if the world is ending. He moans and groans and pouts and whimpers audibly. He asks for drinks and the remote and for head rubs. He sleeps on the couch because the poor baby can barely muster the strength to walk up the stairs. He’s pathetic. It’s all so over-the-top that it would be amusing if I weren’t the one falling victim to his evil ways.
Last year, we were both feeling crummy. We went to get checked out, and I was diagnosed with conjunctivitis, an ear infection, and a sinus infection. Leaving the doctor’s office, I couldn’t help but feel giddy. I had orders—from a doctor—to take it easy and rest up. Visions of Girls Just Want to Have Fun and Dirty Dancing floated in my head. I’d get to nap on the couch and sip milk shakes and actually be waited on for once. Sure, I felt like crap, but it was worth it. So very worth it. I was psyched.
An hour later, Jeff came back from his doctor’s office visit with a different diagnosis: pneumonia. He was bedbound with a 104 fever and needed IV fluids. All I could think was that the bastard had one-upped me. There I was with eyes swollen shut, nose totally clogged, and ears so full of fluid that I couldn’t hear, and I was stuck coddling him! To make matters worse, Lily woke up the next day with a fever. I thought about jumping off the roof but then worried that I would survive, ending up paralyzed and stuck wheeling around the kitchen for the rest of my life, making breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
If keeping kids healthy is a parents’ job, having to keep sick kids home from school is the cruelest imaginable punishment for a failed mission. My kids go to school, goddammit, unless they are running a fever, puking their guts out, or bleeding profusely. Of course, I also am a frequent visitor to the nurse’s office when my morning judgment on borderline sickness proved to be the wrong one. A couple of years ago, I was called in to pick up a tummy-aching Ben from school. As I embraced my green-faced child, I was wracked with guilt: How could I have taken him into class when he’d complained about not feeling well the hour before? What kind of monster was I, choosing grocery shopping and working at Starbucks over nursing my baby back to health? Payback came in the form of buckets’ worth of puke exploding on my chest and seeping through my bra. Chunky, curdled puke. I held his hand and did the walk of shame to the car, stinking up the hallways and vowing to keep him home the next time I was in doubt. Not surprisingly, I awoke the following morning with a stomach bug, along with a house full of three vomiting children.
There’s simply no way around it: a sick mother gets zero sympathy, but it’s just par for the course, I suppose. And one day, when I am old and weak and gray, my kids will take care of me and this all will have been worth it, right?
Right?
Chapter 10
GRILLED CHEESE, SQUARED
Mommy Confessions
• My kids eat the same thing every single day for lunch. I’m sure their teachers think I’m a terrible mom.
• I eat sweets while hiding in the bathroom so I don’t need to share with my children.
• The only thing my kid eats is mac and cheese. I’m not exaggerating.
• When my son refuses to eat something because it looks funny, I want to stab my eye. IT’S FREAKING CORN!
• When I am eating my secret stash of M&M’s and my three-year-old asks what I’m eating, I say broccoli.
• You know what’s worse than kids who refuse to eat vegetables? A father who sets that example.
• We have breakfast for dinner once a week. Okay, three times a week.
• Ketchup is the closest my kids have gotten to vegetables in months.
• I can’t blame my son for wanting to eat only chicken nuggets . . . that’s all I want to eat, too.
• I claim to be a “natural parent,” but my kids and I eat junk food all the time. This morning we had cookie dough for breakfast.
• I sneak boiled veggies into all of my kids’ foods. Their favorite chocolate muffins are made with spinach and sweet potatoes. It makes me insanely happy.
• Biggest pet peeve: when my daughter FINALLY agrees to try a bite, takes a TEENSY lick, then determines it’s disgusting.
• I feed my kids healthy, well-balanced meals and I eat a bowl of cereal for dinner every night.
There are two types of mothers in this world: those who make one healthy meal for their entire family to enjoy as a whole, and those who cater to their children’s palates, serving a kid-friendly option for their little ones and regular food for the adults. There’s no question what the right approach is. Obviously. I am the type of mother who cooks one healthy, well-balanced meal of protein, vegetables, and a starch, and my entire family gobbles it all up without complaining.
Snort.
That’s the kind of mother I was supposed to be, at least. The one I am in some parallel, opposite-day universe
where I’m also not caffeine dependent and enjoy push-ups and get in daily showers. In reality, my kids eat a separate dinner consisting of things I know they’ll eat, rather than things they’ll simply complain about. (Oh, and for the record, I haven’t done a push-up since high school and am usually unshowered. But you probably guessed that.) Somehow, I have become that short-order cook I always vowed not to be. The one who has let her children win.
It wasn’t always like this. Back when the kids were younger, they were open to trying new foods and enthusiastic about eating what was put in front of them. Salmon! Spinach! Grapefruit! Quinoa! Brussels sprouts! Up until age two, each of my children had enviable palates and I pitied the mother who made grilled cheese sandwiches for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And then, it happened, shortly after Lily’s second birthday. “Here you go,” I said as I presented her with roasted beets and goat cheese, one of our favorites. “Yuck,” she pronounced, violently pushing it away. “That’s gross now.” At first, I thought it a fluke. Perhaps, she just wasn’t in the mood for New American that day; she was allowed to be fickle now and then. But then she also turned down the roasted vegetable lasagna and sweet potatoes and halibut that followed. “What do you want?” I cried. “What is happening?” Her eyes lit up. “Grilled cheese,” she pointedly responded. “That’s what I want.” It seems she’d had it the day before during a playdate and the seal was broken. For the next year, the only food that made her happy consisted of white bread and imitation cheese.
Confessions of a Scary Mommy Page 5