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One day a few weeks ago my dad took Joey to look at trains and he took this picture so I could see how much fun they had breaking the law.

Eli is a great mom

I’d always wondered about what kind of mother I’d be. It was one of the scariest parts about being pregnant, right up there with giving birth. And it turns out, just as I’d suspected, I’m not the greatest mother in the world.

Because I commute and Eli works a mile from our house, he drops Joey off and picks him up from school. And because Eli’s job is a little more flexible than mine, he is usually the one to go pick Joey up when he is sick at school or stay home with him when he has a fever. He has taken Joey for shots and blood draws and x-rays. He knows the kids in Joey’s class by name, and some of the parents too. He signs us up to bring things to school parties and even knows when the parties are going to happen. He knows who the biters are.

Meanwhile, I am constantly surprised by how much I don’t know. Like when we’re in a store or at the park and some adult or kid I’ve never met before comes up and asks me if I am Joey’s mom, and starts talking to my son because they know him. Or when I pack his lunch in the morning and am scolded by Eli for including goldfish crackers because those are for “snack” only. One time when Eli had an early meeting I had to do the whole morning routine by myself, and I dressed Joey for school in his blue tee shirt with the alligator on the front. When we got to school another little boy had the same tee shirt on and when I told Eli about it later he said, “Yeah, I know. Zachary always wears that shirt which is why I never put Joey in that one for school.” I also had to ask Joey where to put his lunch bag once we got to school, but I whispered it so as not to advertise my ignorance.

I forget to pack a swim diaper on Wet and Wild Wednesday’s in the summer, I send whole grapes and apples in Joey’s lunch and get notes back from his teachers reminding me to cut them up. He had to wear socks on his hands one day during recess when I forgot to send his mittens to school. I go places without bringing juice boxes and extra diapers and changes of clothes and only think of it when Joey throws up all over himself or suddenly begins dying of thirst. Once I was scheduled to go into work late so I kept Joey home with me in the morning as a treat and when I dropped him off at ten I was spoken to by the director about how dropping children off late is disruptive to the morning classroom routine.

I set bad examples like tossing pieces of broccoli at Eli during dinner, or filling my mouth with as much corn off the cob as I can hold and then pretend-sneezing it across the table. I teach Joey to recognize music by bands like Weezer, Foo Fighters and The Chili Peppers and then am surprised when he sings along to lyrics that are completely inappropriate for a toddler’s mouth in the car in front of my parents. I pray that he will never learn to spell because then I won’t be able to communicate with Eli or other adults. I haven’t found a different way to speak, I’ve simply begun spelling the inappropriate words.

I feel stupid whenever I try to help out with the things that Eli usually does for Joey or when I fuck up and forget to do laundry when he has peed through all of his pants and he has to go to school in the light blue girly sweatpants that are strictly last resort clothing, and never to be worn in public. I occasionally have days of self loathing when I judge myself and decide that I suck as a mother and I feel guilty that I am not actively trying to find ways to stay home with Joey anymore because I love my job. But I figure that as long as one of us is a good mom, Joey will be fine. So what if his good mom is his dad?  

gluesticks, glitter and grief

Last night I bought a Foamies snowglobe for Joey and I to put together today. The kit comes with all of his favorite things like glue and stickers and glitter so I figured it would be a fun project for us to do.

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.