Toddler Insanity

I have become what I never thought I would be: the mother of two who, at the ripe old hour of eleven in the morning, has yet to bathe, or eat a hot meal, or bother to clean up her place because she knows it will just get messed up again and therefore is not a good use of her time.

What happened? Up until now I would have said that I was proud of my ability to keep my house clean, cook from scratch, and take care of quasi-obedient kids. But somewhere in the last week, more of my cherished illusions of Super-Stay-at-Home-Motherhood have fallen. In the last ten days, my toddler has managed to turn my world upside down on an almost daily basis.

Last week he broke my new glasses, handing them to me like they were a precious gift (as in, "Gee, Mommy, thanks for letting me have this $100 toy. It entertained me for five whole minutes!"). At the beginning of this week, he got a hold of my keys and popped the trunk of my car (on a rainy night, of course, causing me to spend the next afternoon cleaning out the garage just so I could get the car in there to clean it out). And for the grand slam, two nights ago I called 911 because Carl locked himself in the bathroom with a broken light bulb and I was unable to ascertain whether he had swallowed any of it (unable to think is more like it), which turned out to be a FALSE ALARM, but not before we wound up in the emergency room. I called my mother this morning and told her that if I had not already had grey hair, it would have turned white by now. As of this morning he has already pulled all the stuffing out of his Winnie the Pooh bear, pulled all my mixing bowls out of the cabinet, spilled my tea on the carpet, and inspired another adrenalin rush when he screamed so hard his feet turned bright red, all because he had a nasty poop that gave him a rash.

I called my mom to vent. I told her about the glasses. She said, "Well little kids are like little animals. They're opportunists, and they act on instinct. You just have to anticipate what they're going to do." Then I told her about the trunk. "Oh..." she sympathized, laughing. "Well little kids are smart, their brains are developing and you are going to have two sets of eyes on you and everything you do, so if you are pressing buttons, he is going to press buttons." Then I told her about the emergency room visit. "Oh," she said again, sympathetically. "I've been meaning to call you." She stopped pontificating on the human vs. animal nature of children at that point.

Now I could be spending my down time cleaning up the mess, but I thought, "This article will last longer than my next batch of dirty dishes, and Carl will appreciate it more." So Carl, this one's for you.