You know the one. The one who screams and screams and terrorizes EVERYONE the whole time he’s in some place even remotely quiet or non-home? Yeah. That one.
That’s my kid.
(However, in my defense, I didn’t ignore his behavior like some parents do. I. Was. MORTIFIED.)
I got an email from a local bookstore that said they’d be having story time today at 11:00. I have known about this story time since the summer, but I knew that Joshua was way too young for it then, despite the urgings of the store owners.
But this story time was coming with free coffee and homemade chocolate chip muffins and 10% off any children’s book in the store.
And I have this desire to keep Joshua on some semblance of his daycare schedule this week without actually taking him to daycare. Call me crazy, but it just makes sense.
See, this whole plan of mine is complicated by one tiny little detail.
My child’s new nickname is Snot Tusks.
Yes. You read that correctly. Snot. Tusks. As in, he sneezes and looks like a disgusting walrus.
I tweeted about whether I should go. I Facebooked about whether we should make this attempt.
The resounding answer was yes.
So, because I’m a lemming (or something) I loaded him up and went. I thought it’d be a good outing. I thought he’d like getting out of the house. I thought I’d like getting out of the house. I thought we’d be the Mommy-Son duo and we’d have it all together and people would be all “Wow! How DOES she do it!?” and I’d be all “I. AM. AWESOME.”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. <–That is the Universe. Laughing at me.
Yeah. That’s how good the morning went.
We got there and I got Joshua a mini-muffin. And he tried to cram the whole thing in his mouth and my heart did a somersault and I was all “HE. IS. EATING. TAKE. A. PICTURE.” but of course I DIDN’T take a picture. But he was eating a muffin. HALLELUJAH.
And then, suddenly, he was trying to feed ME the muffin. But I was eating my OWN muffin. While holding him on my hip. And trying to keep him from getting chocolate chip melt all over us both. And he’s STILL trying to share his muffin with me. God love him.
So then I let him down and he monstered around the store for a while. And that was okay. That was actually pleasant. We walked around and he looked at the books and smiled at me and seemed delighted to not be at home. And I thought “This is not so bad.”
And then there were some books he wanted to pull off of a shelf. And I said “No” and he didn’t like it. At all. And he sat down in a crumpled heap on the floor and cried and wailed like I’d just told him there was no Santa Claus.
So I picked him up and decided we’d just go ahead and go into the children’s area and find a spot to wait for story time to begin.
Only, story time didn’t begin. Because Joshua decided that instead of sitting in my lap and waiting for If You Give a Moose a Muffin to be read, he’d go INSANE on the bookshelves.
He wanted to rip the books off the shelves. When I told him “No” he got inconsolable. He fought me. He cried. He sat down in the floor. He stood up. He climbed in my lap. He sneezed and I wiped his snot tusks away. He fought me while I was trying to wipe his nose. And then he screamed and cried some more.
And then, while I was trying to wrangle my feisty toddler, two other children (not my own) were literally CLIMBING OVER ME to get to the shelves behind me. They were apparently the worlds FASTEST CHILD READERS EVER because they’d grab a book, run to their parent(s), read the book, and then run back to the shelf to grab another one. In the WHOLE ENTIRE ROOM the ONLY shelf containing the books they wanted was the one behind me.
And the other mothers just gave me “those” looks. Those looks of “Wow. That woman obviously cannot control her child.” (Yes, the same mothers whose children were CLIMBING ALL OVER ME.)
And I suddenly felt WAY younger than 28. More like I should’ve been a candidate for Teen Mom or something. Because it feels like I should have this together. Like judgment of that sort should be reserved for moms who get knocked up under the bleachers or in the backseat of a..uh…some kind of car. Or something cliche’ like that.
So I’m trying to monitor Joshua, not get trampled by a herd of wild children, keep the books from attacking the entire universe as they tumble to the floor, and, oh yeah, KEEP MY CHILD FROM HAVING A MELTDOWN.
And then I had an “AHA!” moment and I remembered the baggie of Goldfish in my bag. And then he dumped the Goldfish in the floor.
And then I almost had a meltdown of my own.
Other moms were giving me sympathetic glances. One even asked how old he was and said “It’s so hard when they’re this age” and indicated that her ANGEL CHILD sitting CALMLY and QUIETLY in her lap was around Joshua’s age.
I seriously almost cried.
I picked him up and we left the room and as soon as we did, he stopped crying. Perhaps there was just too much going on. Maybe the room was too bright. I don’t know.
All I DO know is we got the heck out of dodge STAT and made for the nearest Chick-fil-A. Where I took a picture of my food for Jill (@babyrabies) because she has an affinity for the place. This is also where I scarfed down the aforementioned 12 piece nugget meal and a Diet Dr. Pepper.
But y’all. The stress?! OMG.
I’d love to say it got better after we got home and he took a nap, but it is quite clear to me that this child is NOT feeling like himself this week. Not even a little bit.
So we visited the pharmacy and loaded up on all sorts of “help baby breathe” stuffs (Pediacare Gentle Vapor Plug-ins, Baby VapoRub, saline–he hates me for this–, Motrin) and I am just praying for a better day tomorrow.
Because I may have made plans to meet my friend The Brunette Foodie and her bebe at the mall tomorrow. For story time. I am a glutton for punishment.
But this is how I ended my night:
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| Ahhh, Barefoot Sauvignon Blanc. How do I love thee? |
