Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Now I know my ABCs

You know that scene from The Exorcist where the girl's head spins around and she makes those ungodly noises? I think that just happened in my living room.



Heaven help me, I have a threenager.  This miniature human to whom I gave life back in 2011 just said no to orange juice because it wouldn't go with her coffee. I sometimes look at her and think, "Who ARE you??"  She has curly cues and the gentlest blue eyes but she bit a playmate in the face when she tried to take her makeup bag.  She sleeps less than a giraffe, demands filet mignon at least once a week, and uses a proper British accent when she thinks she's in trouble.

I knew motherhood would be draining some days, but I never knew it would suck the life right out of me.  I've pulled college all-nighters that were less exhausting.  At my wits' end, I called my husband to complain, and he dished out some really encouraging parenting advice from the beaches of Ibiza, Spain (a much needed break from fast-paced Switzerland). "Tell her to go to sleep," said Oh Wise One.

I then Facetime my husband later on to confirm that Amelia is going to be an only child, but I'm too distracted for vasectomy chatter.  He's on a lawn chair on the beach, and all I can see are big, bronzed, naked boobies.  Of course Ibiza beaches are topless; why wouldn't they be?  So as I'm eating Oreos straight out of the bag in my stained XL sweat pants with a toddler rolling around the floor like she's having a seizure, my dear hubby is sipping a Pina Colada in Titsville while studying his ABCs (and Ds and DDs). How cute!

How do you women do this? You moms of three or four of these tiny people? Incredible.  I want to shake your hands.

After a particularly awful day yesterday when I wouldn't let Amelia open the straw to my smoothie, she shouted, "I'm going to slap yo face and put you in jail!"  Really? Could it be in solitary confinement? With a bed and three prepared meals a day?  Just tell me what law I have to break.

Maybe I would be more open to future reproduction if I got more than four hours of sleep a night, or if my child didn't cling to me like a stage-five koala bear.








Oh, fellow mothers, what incredible, terrible, sleepless, wondrous beings we've created.  But I need help.  No pride here. I need babysitters and grandmas and wine nights to get me through this.  I need the wisdom of mothers and the pages of self-help books to get Amelia from threenager to four. 

Most days I'm happy if I manage to brush my hair and put on a bra.

Come to think of it, I need a day in Ibiza. 





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