I Will Give You Something to Cry About

The lil' dude threw a tantrum last night. Very unlikely for her, yes. Very emotional. Very dramatic. Very shit, is that what she is going to be like?

Last week, I spent the first three days abandoning all most everything except drinking and going to work without drying my hair. Baby on vaca=mama and daddy on vaca. The other four days I spent picking up the lil' dude and playing the days away with our peeps. Sunday night I went to bed exactly 13 minutes after the lil' dude did, at 8:13pm. Whew! Tired chicas from all our days of play- and cutting teeth and whatnot.

So, last night, it was time to rectify the mess that our home had morphed into. I had one of those days at work where you know you'd rather stay there all night long instead of going home to the unpleasantness that is Homeowning. What I wanted to do was watch Y&R and eat gummi bears on the floor and play blocks with the baby.

Instead, I needed to go laundry, shovel out my bedroom floor, weed the garden, clean the master bathroom, do baby laundry, water the house plants, read my new Wonder Time, People, and Martha Stewart Living. I needed to make rice, grill whitefish for dinner. I needed to make Jell-o for gym breakfasts. I had to hang 3 wet baskets of clothes on the line. To quote the lil' dude's fairy godmother, I needed a wife.

I put that Super Content So Sweet and Eager to Play on Her Own baby on the floor with her fave toys and blanket. I started off with my list . . . and she screamed. And screamed, and screamed. I was watching her do this, turning red with fury and spurting out hot, wet tears. Holy shit. Can the neighbors hear that?

I went over and picked her up, and went out to water the deck flowers. Hard to do with a wiggly baby and 5 gallon watering can. I put her back in the house, gave her the trusty pluggie, and walked away. I wasn't even 2 feet away when she violently flung herself on her back and resumed wailing, the silent-for-3-seconds-while-the-lungs-refill-with-gusto. I went downstairs anyways . . . she was dry, was full, was not being eaten alive by a small woodland creature . . .

Then, I heard it. It sounded like she fell off a piece of furniture. And again, and one more time . . . and a 4th time. What the? I ran back up, and there she was, all 19 pounds of flailing tornadic spasm. She was lifting her legs and banging them on the floor, and she had her arms going with that rhythm too. She was losing her shit! Tan-trum.

You've seen the pictures in National Geographic where the mothers have their babies tied in a sling-apparatus to their hip, and at the same time have a bag of rice hefted over one shoulder and a pot of water on their head? They aren't doing this because they want their children to get in some good bonding and affection, no. No, they are doing this because it is the only way they get anything done for fear of the tantrum. Me? I don't have a sling . . .