La La How The Life Goes On

It’s unbelievable how long it’s been since I’ve written anything here.

It’s unbelievable how a toddler can suck up so much of your “me” time by refusing to nap in her crib.

It’s unbelievable how fast the dishes and laundry pile up when you don’t get a chance to do them during nap time.

It’s unbelievable how physically and mentally tired you can be at the end of a day where you, the parent, have had no downtime because your toddler won’t nap. Nothing like 13 straight hours with a (now cranky because she hasn’t slept) 20 month old to make you appreciate the simple act of sitting in a chair and doing…nothing.

It’s unbelievable how much two kids can bicker over something like play-doh. “I was playing with the pink! She took the pink! That’s MY pink!” Cue the crying, the pushing, the drama. Cue me threatening to throw out every last atom of play-doh in the entire effing WORLD if I hear one more unhappy sound about it.

It’s unbelievable how quickly a woman can turn into The Repo Man after listening to high-pitched arguing for days on end: “If I hear one more unhappy sound about the new crawling tunnel, I will take it back to the store!” “If you two fight every time you get on that couch, the couch will be off-limits!” I mean, really. The couch off limits? But we’re getting there. Entire toys, equipment and yes, furniture, are being shut down, turned off and put away, simply because I am tired of being a referee for stupid fights.

It’s unbelievable how kids interact with each other. Love/hate. Like/dislike. Generosity/selfishness. Kindness/meanness. Bambina is alternately so sweet and so unpleasant to Baby Sister that it makes my head spin. Baby Sister is alternately so cute and so opportunistically annoying toward her big sister. She knows what pushes Bambina’s buttons and then does it and smiles. She may be young but she is a badass, and I’m going to have to keep my eyes on her to channel that badassitude toward good and not evil.

Which brings us to my last point:

It’s unbelievable how much work two kids are. It’s not double one kid. It’s not the same as one kid but just doing it twice. Nope. It’s a whole other level of vigilance, effort, thought, and physicality. To be fair, it’s also a whole other level of fun and happiness too. But that’s not what this post is about. 🙂

I was in the Trader Joe’s today, minding my own business, when I became aware of a mother in front of me talking to her toddlerish son in the cart. It was an extremely annoying singsongy voice that carried above all other voices in the store. More annoying was the content of that ghastly singsong: essentially, a total lack of parenting. The kid was out of control, grabbing things off the shelves, throwing them, standing up in the seat of the cart, you name it, we’ve all been there and suffered through one of these episodes with a kid. So no judgment there on the fact of the toddler being a toddler. I myself had my cherub sit down in traffic at the CVS parking lot to the horrified stares of onlookers, so I know from total humiliation at the hands of a punkass kid. But this mom just kept saying, “Now we can’t shop can we if you stand up/throw things/bla blah blah” all like she’s an flight attendant saying “buy-bye!” at the end of a flight. “Jeremy, don’t do that! Buh-bye!” Totally unbearable.

But it gets worse. As she tries to restrain him from stepping out of the cart, she picks him up and says the following, which no lie made me gag a little in my mouth: “Oh my, your diaper is a little bit wet! I guess that’s what happens when we use all natural cloth!” Now, she did not mean “wet” as in the kid’s ass was moist from his pee. She meant “wet” as in this CART is wet from his pee. So–she simply takes him out of the wet seat and puts him IN THE CART! So there is little dripping boy, being talked to like he’s a passenger on Delta, totally tearing up the Trader Joes regardless.

And there is me, pushng my shopping cart with my food in it, wondering when the last urinating child hung out in it, perhaps right where my salmon is sitting? And then I’m wondering should I say something to this lady–who obviously takes great pride in her no-conflict parenting style and her organic 100% whatever diapers and her totally eco-conscious worldview ethos–and maybe point out that it’s not extremely neighborly to allow your kid to urinate all over a shopping cart? I mean, is that considered okay? Is she part of that lamentable ‘urine is sterile” movement that forgets that its only sterile until it comes out? But what do I know? I wasn’t getting cloth diapers and 100% ecocotton tampons while essentially singing to my kid while she tore up the store. I was there buying cheezy poofs.

I was forwarded this link by a friend on Facebook, and it has completely blown me away. Apparently, drowning does not look like drowning on TV. So if you have kids who love the water, read this article NOW.

The Dada and I will soon celebrate 12 years of holy matrimony, if you can believe it. That’s twelve with a T. Three presidential terms. As long as I spent in public compulsory education. The first time you heard the name Monica Lewinsky. You young lovers who are in the 20’s and 30’s anniversaries and beyond may laugh a little at our “Yay Twelve!” occasion, but we’re tickled. The Dada and I, when asked how long we’ve been married, usually follow up our answer with “We were so young! Good thing it worked out!” We laugh, but you know what? It’s true. What the hell did we know when we were 25 and 26, right? As my boyfriend Jason Mraz sings in his fabulous song ‘Life is Wonderful:’ “It takes no time to fall in love, but it takes you years to know what love is…” I’m sure if the Dada and I could have seen what awaited us in the near and distant future, we’d have been wearing Depends under our wedding outfits and drinking far more heavily at the reception. But that’s the beauty of marriage, isn’t it? When you’re just not feelin’ it or you’re talking past each other for what seems like days on end or when you feel like the clouds may never depart, marriage keeps you together until the sun shines again. Which it always does, assuming you both want it to. Which I think is the secret to why the Dada and I are just so ridiculously happy together: we both believe in the sun, even—and especially–when neither of us can see it.