Higher Highs, Lower Lows

It was Monday.  I managed to pee by myself in the bathroom, only to discover Seabass had pushed Sweet Chuck over from a sitting position and was slapping her head with both hands repeatedly while she cried.  And     I     simply    lost     it.

Lost what? you ask, innocently.  My mind.  My dignity.  My equanimity in the face of difficulty.  It all went far, far, so very far away.

I sort of watched the scream coming, as if in slow motion.  Here it comes I gotta hold this one back or it’s gonna be ugly and think about what the neighbors will think uh oh too late:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

The scream was so long and from so deep in my gut that the kids were already crying by the end of it.  Oh, they were so scared.  All day long, I had been saying “Don’t do this” and “Don’t touch that” and “Don’t hit her” and “Stop grabbing” and “If I hear any more whining…” like a broken record.  And finally, something new came out of my mouth.  It got their attention, all right, but it wasn’t pretty.

After a few moments in which all three of us shed tears, I had the presence of mind to apologize.  ”Screaming is never okay, you guys.  I am so sorry.”  Then hugs all around.  The creepy hugging-too-long-and-too-hard-because-Mama-feels-guilty sort.

Things haven’t really been the same since, especially between me and Seabass.  He’s a little sullen and a lot sensitive.  He might be obeying me more, but he’s not the sparkly, affectionate boy he was just a couple weeks ago. Did I ruin him forever?  Will he have to join a 12-step group to recover?

I’ve told a couple fellow moms about the scream, expecting their jaws to drop in horror.  Of course, they didn’t.  One mom actually said, “Who among us hasn’t screamed?”  And while it certainly helped, for the time being, I’d like to keep that question rhetorical.  It would hurt too much to discover that, in fact, almost nobody acts this way.

The Facebook version of our life at home.

Everything happens in cycles around here.  One week we’re dancing in the living room every night, and the next week we’re weeping and gnashing our teeth in Gehenna.  I used to blame it on Seabass.  And while he certainly is a force to be reckoned with, it isn’t he who sets the tone in our home.  It’s me.  And that, my friends, is a lot of pressure for someone born of such mercurial stuff as I.

…aaaaaand the real version.

I’ve been working really hard since Monday to surrender my impatience and rage in exchange for peace and kindness, and it has worked decently well, but it won’t last.  I’ll fail again.

How to overcome?  No really.  This is a question for which I’d seriously like an answer.

I commented to Jake the other night that our premarital counseling (required by many churches) from 11 years ago continues to bear fruit in our marriage today.  I regularly think back on the words we read from the book As For Me And My House by Walter Wangerin, and apply them as needed.  Surely parenting is as hefty a commitment as marriage; why don’t we encourage pre-parental counseling?

It is all four of us, sitting at the dinner table, eating.  Out of the blue, I decide to become chatty, helpful, Healthy Habits Mama.

Healthy Habits Mama: Hey Seabass, is that a tasty dinner?

Seabass: Uh-huh.

HHM: What’s on your plate?

SB: [Glancing down] Um…spinach and black beans and garlic and carrots and tortillas.

HHM: Oh.  Are those healthy foods?

SB: [Absentmindedly] Uh-huh.

HHM: They all help your body in different ways, don’t they?

SB: Uh-huh.

HHM: Like garlic.  Garlic is really good for your heart.  Did you know that?

SB: [Inquisitive-yet-slightly-blank stare.]

HHM: And carrots are really good for your eyes.  They help you to see far away.  Like a super hero.

SB: [Suddenly hanging on Healthy Habits Mama's every word]

[Pause]

HHM: [Turning to Daddy to discuss something more fruitful] So, did our tax refund get direct deposited into our… [Looking back at Seabass, who has picked up the carrots from his dinner to apply directly to his eyes] NO!  Seabass!! I didn’t mean “good for your eyes” quite like that…

Riddle me this: How can a day be both interminably long and too short in which to accomplish anything?

Answer: Kids.

I woke up several mornings ago feeling fragile and restless.  This happens.  Sometimes I can shake the feeling off, but other times it clings like tar.  This particular morning, it clung.

Children really respond to the unspoken, unseen things inside their parents.  I’ve noticed that when I am up, Seabass is often up with me, and when I’m down, he is like a yawning black hole in our home, sucking every last bit of patience and energy I have.

So what happens when I wake up low and can’t recover?  Mayhem, scuffles, despair. Seabass is about to turn three, and apparently three really is the magic number because he has become magically insane.  We tiptoe around the house knowing that anything could set him off onto a crying jag or, worse, a full bloom tantrum.

He has developed sensitivity into an art, and an unpredictable one at that.  I was washing dishes the other night and a wine glass slipped out of my hand to crack in the sink.  Seabass nearly lost his mind.  Sweet Chuck dropped her baby spoon on the floor yesterday and he was beside himself.  The worst I’ve ever seen, though, was when he released a birthday party balloon and it drifted into the sky.  His jaw appeared to unhinge from the rest of his face, he was so upset.  My first response was, “Come on, kid!  That’s what balloons do!” But I forget that he doesn’t know about helium.  He doesn’t see that the very thing which keeps his balloon upright is that which can also take it far, far away.

So on this fragile morning, I just couldn’t handle the shenanigans, the whining, the irrational Seabass-ness of it all.  And he knew it.  He was poking at my wounds and provoking me to the point of exhaustion.  And it was something like 9:45 AM.

I threw together a little snack for us to share on the front stoop while Sweet Chuck napped.  My feet were cold and I needed to warm up in the spring sunshine.  We sat there, chomping away at almonds for a while, before I found myself with my head in my hands, feeling hopeless.

“Are you sad, mama?”

“Yes, sweetie, I am.”

“Are you having a good day?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s just a bad day,” I said, sighing.  ”Is it a good day for you?”

“Yes.”

“Oh?” I asked, a little surprised, given the screaming tantrum I had just witnessed not three minutes before. “Why is it a good day for you?”

“Because the birds are flying, and there are helicopters and airplanes.”

Now look.  I don’t usually get off on the “Kids Say The Darnedest Things!” entertainment sub-genre, but this was incredible.  Perhaps it was his nonchalance.  Or maybe how quickly his answer came.  Whatever the case, Seabass surprised me, and lightened my load, even for just a moment.  He was right: the birds were flying, and there were helicopters and airplanes.  Not within view at the time, of course, but there were helicopters and airplanes somewhere in the world, and that was pretty great.  I hugged his precious neck and kissed his apple cheeks and tried to memorize the pleasure of just being his mama.

In case you have some burning desire to know how Seabass has been lately, this pretty much sums it up.

ReasonsMySonIsCrying.tumblr.com

Thank you, whoever you are, for shamelessly documenting your son’s irrational crying.  It means a lot to me and all the other mothers of toddlers out there.

Cute and completely insane.

In our family, I’d say 15 percent of all days are pretty seriously awesome.  Most days are just okay – probably around eighty percent.  And what of the remaining five percent of days?  Atomically, horrifically, spectacularly awful.  To clarify, that means that about 18.25 days out of the year are atomically, horrifically, spectacularly awful.  And yesterday, apparently, we were due.

To be fair to my precious Seabass, the night before had set him up to fail.  Attending the 3rd birthday party for one of his friends, we were out late, and there was a fair amount of sugar involved.  For a kid who almost never goes to bed late or has access to sweets, Seabass was doomed to crash and burn.

But even aside from those circumstances, lately, Seabass appears to be ramping up for the Apocalypse.  He is loud, wiggly, sensitive, and clumsy.  In context, that means he’s waking the baby, constantly hurting himself, disintegrating at the slightest infringement on his independence, and DANCING ON MY LAST NERVE. So with all of this firmly in mind, I braced myself for a day of difficulty.

But I would have sold my cerebral cortex for a mere “day of difficulty” if I’d known how ugly yesterday would get.

Seabass lied to me three times.  The first time, I was folding clothes when I heard a startled arf! in the backyard.  When I arrived at the scene of the crime, Seabass held a toy hammer and Murphy appeared to be suffering the effects of PTSD.

“Did you hit Murphy?” I asked.

“I didn’t do aneefeeng,” said Seabass.

“Are you lying to me?” I asked.

“No. I’m not. [beat] Yes.”

The second lie came after I heard a thud and scared wail from Sweet Chuck.  She had been sitting up, but was now, suddenly, quite horizontal.

“Did you push Sweet Chuck?” I asked.

“No.”

“Did.  You.  Push.  Sweet Chuck?”

“No. [beat] Yes.”

The third lie was the worst because I actually saw what Seabass did before he lied to me.  He didn’t know I was watching as he barreled his ball-popping toy vacuum cleaner into a happily upright Sweet Chuck head-on, causing her to be horizontal – and screaming – once again.

“[Aghast] Did you just push Sweet Chuck down again?!?” I asked.

“No!  I didn’t!  [beat, starting to cry] Yeeeeeessssssss.”

All of this happened before 11:30 in the morning.  By lunchtime, I had the “FREE TO A GOOD HOME” sign ready.

The apex of all this awesomeness came when Jake called to remind me that he was scheduled to file our taxes with the accountant directly after work, and couldn’t help me put the kids to bed.  Putting 2+ kids down for bed is something that most moms or dads probably don’t fret about performing solo, but this mom doesn’t care for it so much.  Jake is my helpmate and the calm half of our marital equation.  I depend upon him.

Everything was actually going pretty well for a while.  Dinner was on the table promptly, Seabass was happily munching away at pasta, and Sweet Chuck was in her Bumbo for rice cereal.  About halfway through dinner, I noticed that she was staring off into the distance and turning a little red, but it quickly passed and we kept eating.  It wasn’t until I picked her up to put on her pajamas that the cause of her red face became clear.

People, there are blow-outs, and then there are supernova butt-blasts, leaving a trail of weeping and gnashing of teeth in their wake.  You wouldn’t believe such devastation could come from my sweet little sugar lump of a daughter, but it does and it did.  It did.

Wipe after wipe after wipe.  Wipe after wipe after wipe.  Pasty baby poop on my fingers, on my arm.  Her hand swiped into it.  I tried to keep her from putting her hand in her mouth.  Tried to keep the dog away from what he, no doubt, considers a rare delicacy.  And tried to stay calm while Seabass wrangled every single moment for new ways to be utterly obnoxious.

There was so much godforsaken poop, the only answer was a bath.  But the kitchen sink (where we usually bathe Sweet Chuck) was full of dishes.  It’ll have to be Sweet Chuck’s first bath in the bathtub, I thought, foolishly.  I ran to the bathroom with a naked and poopy Sweet Chuck in my arms, Seabass and Murphy pawing and squawking at me.  I placed her into the cavernous tub and started the water.  Her eyes became enormous and shrieks of terror began flying from her mouth.

“WHY IS SHE CRYING?  WHAT’S GOING ON? WHY IS SHE USING **MY** BATHTUB?” yelled Seabass.

Clearly this wasn’t working.  Maybe she’ll be okay in the bathroom sink, I thought, again, foolishly.  By this time, Sweet Chuck wasn’t going to be okay anywhere but Mama’s arms, but I tried anyway.  Again with the shrieks of terror and Seabass running laps around us.

Finally, I gave up and realized that her regular bathtub in its regular position was the only solution.  I hoisted the 25-pound screaming Sweet Chuck out of the bathroom sink and ran to the kitchen.  As I furiously threw dishes from one side of the sink to the other in order to make room for the infant tub, the warm, wet sensation of Sweet Chuck’s pee came over the left side of my body.  Par for the course, really.

The bath was had, the pajamas were donned, my clothes were washed, and sleep finally took over, I’m happy to report.  But it was the kind of day that leaves a mark.  I was in bed by 8:30pm, long before Jake came home.

There are many benefits to having children.  I hope it’s not gauche to say that tax credits are one of them.  When our accountant divulged how much our tax refund would be,  Jake decided to surprise me with these beautiful sparkles, picked up on his way home.

A little bling never hurt anyone.

They don’t completely make up for the atrocities of March 27, 2013, but I love them anyway.

agen·cy noun \ˈā-jən(t)-sē\: the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power.

Was she really in my tummy just over six months ago?