new teeth, bad attitude

I need a break.  Eli and I only have one day each week when we’re home together so it sucks when we spent that day doing errands and nothing fun.  We had planned to go to the mall to just walk around and window shop and let Joey ride the carousel, but we were out of groceries and diapers and toilet paper so we did the responsible (boring) shopping instead.  And Joey had his first ever total public meltdown. 

We were in Target for a long time, probably 90 minutes.  And by the time we made it to the register Joey was fidgeting in the carriage and beginning a series of shrieks that are so disturbingly high pitched that every person in the front of the store immediately stopped what they were doing to look around and see who was murdering their baby.  I took him out of the carriage and let him walk around in the front of the store while holding my hand.  I thought if he just got out to stretch his legs a little he’d be fine.  He wasn’t fine.  He kept trying to run from me and when I grabbed his hand to lead him away from danger, he would stop, yank his hand back and fall down on the floor screaming.  And then he would make a break for it by trying to crawl away from me in the other direction.  After he almost got walked on and run down by a carriage, I pulled him to his feet and tried to guide him gently back to the register where Eli was checking out.  But he resisted my efforts and then threw himself at some woman’s feet in a desperate attempt to get away from me as we were walking by.  When he hit the back of her legs she turned around and looked very concerned and asked if he was hurt.  I told her no because he hadn’t fallen over, he had thrown himself on the floor voluntarily like a little shit. 

Finally my patience collapsed so I got the keys from Eli and headed out to the car with my screeching child.  He was still screaming when I strapped him into his car seat and he didn’t stop until I gave him an old fruit wheel I found on the floor in the backseat and cranked the radio up real loud.  He probably figured he couldn’t compete with The Clash so he concentrated on using his mouth to annihilate his stale fruit wheel.  And before you think I’m a bad mother for giving my child old food off the floor of the car, know that he eats out of the trash every day and enjoys it.  We don’t have a lid on our kitchen trash can so he just reaches in and eats whatever he can pull out.  Sometimes it’s a banana peel, sometimes it’s a handful of coffee grinds and sometimes it’s a big fistful of chicken chow mein ripped from the bowels of a discarded styrofoam China Wok container.  It used to bother me a lot, this eating out of the trash that he does, but I figure maybe if I don’t make a big deal out of it, he’ll eventually realize it’s gross on his own and stop.  Until then I guess I will continue to pry broken egg shells and dirty paper towels out of his hands after each trash dive.  At least I don’t have to worry about him if he ever ends up living on the street.  His trashpickin’ skills would rival those of even the most skilled raccoon.

I think Joey might be heading for more teething, judging from the whining and lack of naps and just general unpleasantness around here today.  It has been a long day of baby crying and overtiredness and hours of playing. Eli and I have been edgy with each other today and getting into little stupid fights like the one a few minutes ago when we had a heated argument in the living room about the best way to draw a three-dimensional cube on the Magna Doodle. 

We also had a fight about the order of dinner and bath.  To me it seemed logical to give Joey his dinner after the bath since he spends his whole time in the bath bouncing and sliding and flopping around in the tub in a frenzy of joyous water celebration.  I get seasick just watching him but he has a wonderful time swimming and trying to crawl and then standing and falling down and sliding from one end to the other down the slight incline toward the drain and then flipping over onto his stomach to claw and splash his way back to the other end so he can do it again.  But Eli thought he should eat dinner first because he’s a slob and there’s no point in bathing him if he’s just going to smear meatballs all over himself immediately after his bath.  And if he pukes up a little meat in the tub, no problem!  He’ll be sitting in water and it’ll clean right up!

I decided to leave the house and just let Eli do whatever he wanted with the kid while I shopped for shoes.  I got a smokin’ deal on a pair of very cute mules and I wasn’t even sure I was going to buy them until a woman walked up to me as I was trying them on and asked me where I found them.  I pointed to the rack and told her I thought they might be the last pair.  She looked over at the empty rack and then back at my feet mournfully and told me they were really pretty shoes and she loved the color.  “Are they comfortable?” she asked.  “Like fluffy clouds on my feet,” I replied.

After that she kept hovering around me as I looked at shoes, obviously waiting for me to get distracted and put down the pretty mules so she could swoop in and grab them up for herself.  At one point when she was still desperately shadowing me after ten minutes I thought she might go all Oz Witch and try to steal them right out of my hands, so I headed to the register and bought them before she could get clever.

When I got back home the baby was sparkly clean and full of dinner and I didn’t even ask which order things happened in.  And now I’m going to bed to sleep the memory of this day away and tomorrow I will wake up very early, put on my new shoes, and leave the house for the whole day.  I’ve never been so happy that I have to go to work.