gluesticks, glitter and grief
And it was, except that by the time we got to it we’d already spent the morning at a kids craft fair where the kids get to go around to different stations, manned by middle-schoolers, and make Christmas decorations. By the time we left the fair we were both covered in glitter and little clumps of glue, but we had a bunch of ornaments that I will be able to embarrass Joey with when I show them to his high school girlfriend one day. Like the rage angel ornament with the body of a pinecone and a face of scribbled fury. Joey wouldn’t put a bow on his angel, nor a halo, and he has been walking around the house with it all day making it growl.
I thought the craft fair might exhaust his creative energy for the day and I could save the Foamies Snowglobe for another time, and we could spend some quality time watching Christmas cartoons this afternoon instead. But he is three, and three year-olds never forget. So when we got home he wanted to do the Foamies project and I couldn’t say no because I’ve been using the project as a bribe all morning to get him to do the things I want him to do like brush his teeth, put his clothes on and stop screaming at me from the backseat to “LOOK, MAMA!” while I am trying to drive the car.
I let Joey work on the tree, while I assembled the snowman. I rolled it in glitter, which was a big mistake because after that the head wouldn’t stick to the body, the hat wouldn’t stick to the head, and the fucking scarf kept falling off no matter how much glue and pressure I used to get the damn things to stay together. After ten minutes of picking glitter covered snowman pieces up off the floor, I took a knife to it and rigged the whole thing together with toothpicks. And then Joey touched it and the whole thing fell apart again. So the snowman has been kicked out of the project for not cooperating.
My parents came over during the snowglobe project to visit with Joey and it was pretty interesting to watch my mom fuss all over Joey while at the same time maintaining her vow of silence against me. We had a fight this week, and I am now on her Do Not Talk list. This happens every once in a while and I used to get angry about it, but I’ve finally come to accept that she is insane and her moods and fits have nothing to do with me.
You’re probably wondering what I did to piss her off. Okay, here goes, but this is a horrible story so feel free to skip this part.
My mom called me at work on Wednesday to tell me that a close friend of the family’s two and a half year-old grandson had choked on a piece of candy and was in the hospital. There was very little brain activity and he would probably not make it. The grandmother of the baby had a heart attack when she heard the news and was also in the hospital, and the father of the baby, who was with him when it happened, was in the hospital under sedation because he couldn’t handle it and was a suicide risk.
She shocked me good and I couldn’t speak for a moment
because that’s a lot of horrible news to hear in one minute. And I was at work,
the last place I would want to receive news like this. I am not close to the family this happened to,
but I have known them my whole life. And I am a parent of a young child myself,
and this automatically makes me more sensitive and empathetic to the things
that happen to other children, especially if the thing is a freak accident that
could just as easily happen to my own child.
When I was able to speak again I asked her what the hell was wrong with her
that she needed to call me at work to tell me something like that. I told her
she was insensitive, reckless with people’s feelings, unthinking, selfish and inappropriate.
I said a lot of mean things to her, but most of it didn’t have anything to do
with her calling me that day. It had more to do with the fact that I’ve been
biting my tongue for so long when it comes to her that all I needed was a really
good jolt for it to all come flying out.
I hurt her feelings and upset her but I can’t apologize. Maybe now she’ll stop calling me every time she hears about another child abducted or abused or murdered to share the horrible details of the story with me and remind me to keep my own baby safe. As though I wouldn’t think of protecting Joey without her constant reminders. As though I don’t know about all the horrible things that can happen to a child in this world.
It's just that sometimes ignorance can be bliss and rather than focusing on misery, most days I'm just trying to find some fucking peace.
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