Motherhood

Just Don’t Slam the Door, A’ight?

Some days you know your day is going to be shot to hell before you even open your eyes. For me, it all started with a bang.

It all started when Stone, my nearly 3 year old son, walked into the room this morning – which in itself was an innocent enough of an act. In the soft morning sunlight, I could make out the flash of a sleepy smile as he greeted me and thumped over to my side of the bed. He paused and went back to the door. He’d forgotten to do something, his two-year old self said. He reached up and slammed the door shut, causing the walls to rattle and causing his little sister to wake up with a start. She let out a long loud shrill cry of protest. It was only 6:30 am.

My husband got up and went into the shower, leaving me to decide whether or not the baby (who will be 2 in June and not really a ‘baby’ at all any more) would be getting up this early. I ignored her and went downstairs. This was the wrong decision apparently. She would make me pay.

It’s hard to describe Liya’s cry. I’ve tried to many times on this blog, but I don’t think I’ve ever successfully captured the essence of it. It’s a cross between an electric chain saw, a dying werewolf and a newborn piglet all rolled into one. There are so many textures to her scream that it penetrates every decibel known to man. It’s like an arrow being shot through your skull. I did an about face and went and got her out of her crib, just to make it stop.

Part of the difficulty of having two children so close together and so young is that you generally can’t understand what in God’s holy name they are gabbing on about. While Stone should be fluent – or at least nearly so – in English, he has been afforded the luxury of remaining at the toddler phase of the English dialect by virtue of the mere presence of a younger sibling. You would imagine that the pair of them might exhort each other to grasp the Queen’s English and execute it proficiently, but instead they are perfectly content to babble and giggle with one another while unleashing mayhem upon my poor crowded house.

Once I carried Liya down the stairs for breakfast, Stone soon followed. That’s when the screeching began anew.
“Shheerios! Shhheeriosss!” Liya howled in a sound that was both guttural and pitchy.

I poured her some Cheerios. That’s what I assumed she wanted. She knocked the entire bowl onto the floor and squalled in displeasure.

Noooo!! Shhheerios!!!!!

%##&*@# little girl! I gave you Cheerios! What else do you want!

When I gave Stone some Rice Krispies, she made a dive for his bowl. Ohhh…. “cereal”. She was speaking in generic terms, not exact. I should have known. But can I be blamed? She should have a better grasp of the English language by now. Her eldest sister certainly did.

Speaking of her eldest sister, I had to turn my attention to her by fitting her head with a crown we’d made the day before out of cut up Cheetos packets and a DSW bag. We had to come up with a costume made entirely of recycled material.

“I don’t have a shirt to wear, Mommy,” she said with concern.

Crap. I’d forgotten to put that load in last night. You mean out of all the clothes I’ve washed there wasn’t a single uniform shirt among them? As luck would have it, there was not.

Fortunately, their school is celebrating Earth Day all week, and since they are being asked to recycle, I pulled out a uniform shirt that is no longer on the approved list. Now that’s recycling.

With the bigger two off to school, I turned my attention back to my smallest pair. They were fighting over a fork with which to eat their cereal. Why couldn’t they understand that the mechanics involved in trying to get a Rice Krispy onto a narrow fork require more skill than either one of them possess at this stage? I took the fork from them and offered them each a spoon. That’s when Liya responded by dropping the entire cup of “shherios” onto the ground. That’s when I knew she had to go.

With every muscle of her sinewy 27 lbs frame she fought me, but I managed to lay her back in her crib. The solitude made her calm and blissfully quiet. But the effects of that door slam would wear on into the day.

Taking advantage of the quiet, I got into the shower to try and wash away the film of sweat that was covering me. I was in mid-scrub when I heard a faint tapping sound. Kind of like glass against glass. Would could that be? Sopping wet, I got out of the shower to behold Stone tapping my drinking glass of water against my television.

“No!” I gasped. “No, no, no!!”

He giggled and hopped into my bed, throwing the covers over his head. His diaperless but cheeks rubbed against the pillow case, leaving all manner of chocolaty surprises for me to discover later, I am sure. When he leapt out of the bed, he called for his sister to join him in my closet (when did she get out of the crib?) so that they could play “tunnel”. She began her play by pulling at my husband’s work shirts. I ignored the sound of a quiet rip and finished my shower.

It is not yet noon and I’ve already cried three times this morning. I feel as though I’m defeated before I’ve even had a chance to cook lunch. The sad part is, I can’t even take them to daycare because Liya’s hair is undone…and I just don’t have the fortitude to wash it this morning. Have you ever wrestled a talking wildebeest?  And the pundits want to say this is not a “job”.

Bah!
M.O.M moms – how’s your day going so far? What have your kids done to make your day miserable memorable this morning?