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My Profile
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone... - 2009-11-05
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4:55 p.m. - 2004-02-08
It’s been a bad day here in Mini-dunk. I think Wolf may be the only ‘baby’ in any family whose parents are bigger hard-asses than the parents the older siblings had to deal with. So much for the conventional wisdom that the baby of the family is spoiled. Far from being spoiled, Wolf gets yelled at waaaaay more often than Alex ever did. Now it would be easy to say that Wolf deserves more yelling, Alex was a placid kind of kid and not one to charge around creating mayhem like Wolf does. But that’s not entirely honest. Wolf is a destructive force, a wee hurricane in a rugby shirt and jeans, but it’s also his poor luck to have gotten Menopause Mom ™. I simply do not have patience anymore. The urge, no, the NEED to shout is always there. Lurking just below the surface like an alligator in a bayou. One stupid move and SNAP! I lost it big time today. In front of the neighbors too. Sometime next week I expect I’ll be getting a visit from Child Services. (Knock Knock.) “Mrs. Sage? I’m Yolanda Snoopyhead from the County Child Welfare Office. We’ve received reports of abuse. May I come in?” And however will I be able to explain away those shackles in Wolf’s closet? Okay, I’m kidding about the shackles. Really. Explaining why I was in the middle of the driveway screeching at my child like a harpy is another matter. It’s been just me and Wolf today. Mike left early early. The house was a sty. I hadn’t picked up in a few days and Mike and Wolf are crud generators of awesome ability. So my priority was to get the house straightened out. At 6 years old it’s beyond time for Wolf to learn how to be useful, so instead of plopping him in front of the computer and whisking around doing the chores myself, I made Wolf ‘help’. Oy. A whole morning of “Wolf! Please cooperate. Wolf! I’m still waiting for you down here! Wolf, pick that up, please. No, not the rug, the SNEAKER. Yes, that sneaker. Now go put it on the shoe shelf. No, I don’t know why Legends of the Hidden Temple isn’t on 24 hours a day. And I’m still waiting for you to pick up the sneaker. THAT sneaker. Pick. It. Up.” Okay? All morning with Wolf, Wolf, Wolf. Every stinking thing took 90 times longer to do because he was ‘helping’. All liberally interspersed with questions. Inane questions, repeated often. At lunchtime we were still only halfway through the downstairs and I was frazzled. I whipped up some lunch. Endured the tantrum because I used the wrong size pickles on Wolf’s hotdog. Asked him 39 times to finish his milk. Repeatedly discussed the mysteries of Nickelodeon programming. And was still facing another 13 hours of housework. Enough ‘help’ already. It only took 15 minutes to wrestle the kid into his snow clothes and I sent him outside to play. Now our poor, poor downtrodden Wolf had to wear (ohmygod, the horror) MIS-MATCHING mittens! He’d left one of the mittens in the Bronco. And the other one doesn’t have a mate at all. The mis-matched pair was available so that’s what he got. He was NOT happy. Wolf’s outside and I’m rushing around like a demented thing trying to finish the cleaning. All the while I’m sticking my head out the window every 30 seconds to make sure the kid was okay and hadn’t gone flying into the road on his sled. Wolf wouldn’t just docilely sled down the yard. He had to stop every few feet and complain about the mittens. Then he disappeared entirely. I freaked. Raced around looking for him. Finally, after a small heart attack, I found him. He’d left the side yard and was in the driveway moaning about the mitten in the truck. He couldn’t sled! The right mitten was in the Bronco! Fine. I go stomping outside to get the fucking mitten out of the Bronco because Mr. Obsessive-Compulsive Asberger’s Syndrome would continue to noodge about the mitten until doomsday. The Bronco’s doors were frozen shut. I got snow inside my slippers. Hurt my shoulder trying to wrench the frozen truck door open. And Wolf is chanting, “Mitten. Mitten. Mitten…” in a steady drone that made me shake with frustrated fury. I swung around to face the kid and let loose. “I CAN’T get the stupid mitten out of the truck! Will you shut up already? I have snow in my slippers and I’m freezing! Happy now, Mr. Picky-pants? I hope you are thrilled! Christ Almighty, it’s a MITTEN! Will you just get over it? Go sled or I swear I will spank you and send you to your room! Dammit! I cannot take one more second of your whining! The world isn’t going to end because you have a red mitten on one hand and a blue one on the other! I. Have. Had. ENOUGH! Do you hear me? No MORE!” That’s when I saw the neighbors. I’m in my housework grungies, my hair is sticking up every which way, and I’m screaming at my child. I grabbed Wolf by the arm and hauled him back to the side yard. I hissed at him to play on his sled or there’d be hell to pay, and booked it back into the house. Wolf tried. I’ll give him that. But he couldn’t get over the mitten thing and was totally upset because I’d shrieked at him. The yard is icy and his sled kept skittering away before he could sit on it properly. He flung himself down on the ground and commenced to bawl. And the very worst thing? When I stuck my head out and asked why he was crying my little Wolf could only sob, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, Mom!” I’m a terrible mother. I’m just not equipped to deal with a kid like Wolf. He deserves better. Please don’t protest and tell me I do okay. That my kids are well loved and can deal with a bit of shrieking. What I did today was awful. ~LA
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