This is an Anniversary Edition….June of 2008, Pete was already in Atlanta and I was in St. Louis trying to sell our house and stay sane. Meg had just turned 9, Gus was 4 and Mabel had just turned 3. I was 36 and managed to dip to an all time new low on the Maternal Malfunction Meter. Enjoy!
The last five weeks have been a whirlwind of stress, despair, worry, frustration, hard work, and separation. It’s really the six key components to a fabulous summer. On week one I found out that a whopper grant I wrote for our school was successful and that was bittersweet knowing my kids would not reap the benefits. On week two my parents abandoned me to live in DC for two months and the lovely Mrs. Green who lived in our house for 40 years, passed away and I made an ass out of myself at her funeral. On week three I found out that Gus has been partially deaf in his right ear for a year due to a perforated eardrum (no maternal guilt there at all). On week four I herniated a disk in my back and an ear surgery for Gus did not happen because the surgery center lost power two minutes before he was going into the OR. I don’t have a great story to share as to how I injured myself. I wasn’t playing sports, or saving a child. Instead I will share that I bent over to shave my leg and that was it. Popping, shifting, and pain to the extent that my arms and lips went numb. If Pete had not been here, my children would have witnessed Webster Groves’ finest pulling me out of a shower. Not a great image to have etched into young minds. Thank God for small favors.
Part of the motherhood package includes a healthy portion of guilt but it also includes a fast track to insanity. It’s a vicious circle of pushing you to your limits where you may act your ugliest and then the guaranteed follow-up of extreme guilt. They go hand in hand and there is no way to avoid it. Such was the case last Wednesday.
I had just finished my round of steroids and I was upright for the first time in a while. My husband was in Atlanta but we were close to a deal on our house and I had my sister Lucy in town to help me because walking was difficult, and bending, twisting, or lifting was impossible. Steroids can make you really crabby according to my neighbor who is a physical therapist…..this explains all of it! I’m totally blaming all of my actions and words on the steroids from here on out. Please remember this as you read on.
We had to clean the house and evacuate so that the new buyers could do their home inspection. So we packed up and headed for my parents house. After a few hours the kids were ready to kill each other and I needed to be back in the fetal position so we loaded up to head for home. Mabel was being extremely stubborn and refused to do anything I said, simply because she knew I couldn’t do anything about it. Eventually we got her to the van but once there she fought me again and refused to let me buckle her car seat. I had been threatening all day and I was really close to blowing a gasket. After being kicked I knew I was going to follow through on a threat. I yelled, “Mabel, stop it or I will chuck your baby.” Mabel still refused so I said, “Gus, give me the baby.” Gus obeyed because the boy is not stupid and he knew I was on the edge. I instantly chucked the baby over my head into the middle of my parent’s front yard. Mabel started screaming but relaxed her torso so I was able to buckle. I got in the car and drove. Mabel was screaming for her baby. Gus, the voice of reason, then said, “See Mabel, the point is that you can earn the baby back. You just need to be good and maybe then Mom would take you to visit the baby in the grass.” I’ve never heard Gus say, “See the point is…” That was when I snapped out of my insanity and realized just what I had done. My sister had been silent in the passenger seat but lost it when she heard Gus’ thoughts. She then looked at me and said, “You know what you did could be considered a hate crime because you threw the African American baby.” Then I too lost it. Mabel fell in love with a black baby at the dollar store and she hasn’t let it go. Why did that have to be the one baby that I chucked! How many neighbors witnessed the hate crime?
After we got home, Lucy and I sat down on the couch while the kids went to play and twenty minutes later, Lucy received a call that her good friend JT had died. JT was only 33 and a good friend of Lucy’s since college. He was diagnosed with cancer in late April and Lucy and her friends rose over $90,000 for him a few weeks ago so that he could go to Oklahoma for special treatment and all reports were very positive so this was unexpected. Lucy and I cried and cried until children came around. Lucy decided she needed to go have a good cry away from my kids so she left.
So I was alone with the kids and had to stop crying and suck it up and somehow make dinner in my invalid state. I managed to get a pizza in the oven which was a fete! I was thinking I was doing really well until Mabel summoned me to the bathroom for, how should I say this…..oh hell….she needed to be wiped. I couldn’t bend to wipe and Lucy was gone and there was Mabel in her wiping position which means she bends at the waist and puts her hands on the floor. Blood was rushing to her head and she was begging for someone to wipe her. Meg was outside so I had to ask Gus to wipe his sisters behind. I was there to instruct on technique and the moment little Gussie started, Mabel started crying and saying it hurt. Evidently she had some resipooy (this is a Krussel term…..a combination of residue and pooy……formal definition would be a residue of fecal matter that remains on human epidermis in the buttocks region causing chafing and irritation and of course, discomfort). So I’ve got a kid screaming with her drawers at her ankles and the pizza buzzer was going off and then my agent pulled in the driveway. I had no choice but to abandon Mabel and save the pizza from burning. While keeping my back straight I did the deepest knee bend ever to get the pizza out of the oven. Mabel stopped crying when my agent walked in and Meg and Gus were mad because I had to sit down for a second before I could slice the pizza.
So in walks my agent, Pat and she instantly said, “Where’s Woocie?” Woocie is the name Pat’s children called Lucy when they were tiny and Lucy was their babysitter and they couldn’t pronounce their L’s. I instantly started crying!!!! I had to tell her that Lucy’s friend died and that I was so sad and then Pat was crying. Meg and Gus just continued to eat and Mabel climbed onto my lap and quickly fell asleep at 5:30 pm while my friend and I cried. Honest to God I had not shed a tear for 5 weeks straight until that day! It was like a damn broke and I was a lunatic! I didn’t want to do all of it anymore. I didn’t want to leave my family, Marshall Place, Webster Groves. Pat left and I was stuck on the couch with Mabel on top of me. There was no way that I could lift her or carry her up to bed. It was actually very nice. I watched Mabel sleep and you know they always look so innocent when they are asleep so the guilt of the baby chucking incident was looming large at that time. Lucy came back by 7:00 with a giant coffee and seemed to be in a better place. Of course we cried again and I told her to just go back to her friends in her town. She put everyone to bed for me and set out breakfast bowls for the next morning and then she was gone. I managed to survive Thursday and Friday without Pete or Lucy, with a renewed sense of what really is important, but I will tell you that my house has never been that trashed and you know things are bad when you dread the pain of pouring milk for your kid’s breakfast.
Pete came home Friday night. Mabel ran and jumped into his arms. She instantly put her hands on Pete’s cheeks and looked him in the eyes and said, “Mommy loseded her mind and threw my baby in the grass.”(We all now use that tense of lost). Pete just looked at me. All I said was, “The kid is not lying.” We have a long way to go until we will be settled in Atlanta and I can guarantee you that I will have further, less than stellar mothering moments. In the interim we are coping by playing inappropriate games and singing inappropriate songs. Strip Candy Land is a new family favorite (I don’t participate) and my kids have been walking around singing “Somebody farted. Somebody farted in here” to the tune of “Let’s get it started. Let’s get is started in here.” (Thank you Tim Basler) The sad part is that I find it very humorous. Single handedly I am ruining what would otherwise be three amazingly intelligent and normal children. So the question still looms, should I just call family services on myself? Most would say yes but I would argue that children need to see their Mom’s lose it from time to time if for no other reason than to appreciate when their Mom’s are sane.
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