Even we Paragons have our Bad Days

We are going to the park!

We don hats and shoes, we check sunscreen, we head out the front door and gather on the porch prior to getting into the stroller. And someone stinks. Really, really stinks.

Back into the house. This is, I confess, mildly exasperating.

I open the diaper, and the child’s mother has put the “Let’s-Gag-Mary” diaper cream on his butt, even though I have repeatedly told her the scent makes me gag. It is worse than the contents of the diaper, which are not sweet. Gag me. And this, too, is kind of annoying.

Now that we’ve been delayed, I decide to have snack before we head out, instead of at the park as we normally would. This unsettled Nigel the Anal Methodical. The second our feet hit the sidewalk out front of my house, he starts in.

“We havin’ a snack, Mary?”

“We just did, Nigel.”

“We havin’ a snack, Mary?”

“What did we just eat, Nigel?”

“Peaches and apples and cheese.”

News to me. Far as I was aware, we’d stopped at peaches. “Peaches, that’s right. So -”

“We havin’ a snack, Mary?”

I give up. “NO, Nigel. We are NOT. Today, you are going to STARVE all morning, okay?”

“Okay.” (This submission is a small mercy. I accept it as such. Phew. ‘Cuz otherwise I’d have had to scream and stamp my feet and otherwise be a very, very Bad Example. Any other day, I blip right over these exchanges. Some days they amuse me. Today, it’s only BLOODY ANNOYING.)

Walking to the park, we encounter a large, noisy truck. Now, I, personally, do not LIKE large, noisy trucks. Trucks are boring. And they’re noisy. They have limited appeal.

To the tots, their appeal is (oh, be merciful) limitless, and as a loving and professional caregiver, I make sure we spend a long, long, lllllooooong (pleasewilliteverend) time enjoying the large noisyness. And then – thank GOD – the children start to get restless, and “It’s time to go to the PARK, kids!!”

So off we go. All except Timmy. There’s a magnet in his nose, a big powerful one, drawing his face directly to that damned noisy truck. We turn left, he’s staring right over his shoulder. We ease right, he’s staring left. Which is okay, except ‘left’ and ‘right’ are not ‘straight ahead’, and the boy canNOT walk ‘straight ahead’ when his head is pointed ‘left’ and ‘right’.

The path eases left. Timmy smashes into the side of the stroller. I move Timmy to the other side of the stroller. Timmy walks directly into my feet and I turn my forty-something body into a pretzel to try not to trample him. Forty-something bodies do not LIKE being wrenched pretzel-like. Nor do forty-something brains think their bodies should have to put up with this nonsense. And I cannot even attempt to tell you what forty-something hormones feel about it – this is a Family Blog.

On another day, his fixation would be amusing. Today it’s only BLOODY ANNOYING. When next he veers into my path, I fight – successfully – the urge to accidentally-on-purpose stomp all over him. He escapes by the skin of my determination – which is weakening rapidly.

We continue the next two blocks until that damned truck can no longer be heard with my hand clamped firmly to the top of his head. His eyeballs are rolling around in a desperate attempt to see OUT THE BACK OF HIS HEAD, but he can’t. Nyah. I prevail, and I ENJOY it. It’s for his own good. If he trips me up a third time, I can’t promise restraint.

We play our run-and-freeze game when we get to the broad path in the park. Nigel and Malli are sent to run ahead. When I say “Freeze!” they are to, yes, freeze. It’s a safety procedure which I’ve not tried on these two yet. Malli gets it in short order. Nigel? Let’s just say that Nigel will be holding onto the stroller for a while yet.

“Freeze! Good job, Malli!… Nigel? Nigel, stop! NIGEL!! NIIIII-GEL!!! FREEZE.”

Several times in a row, with careful explanation and demonstration in between. The boy’s nowhere near having a clue.

“Okay bud, you have to hang on to the stroller.”

“But I want to run ahead!”

“Not if you can’t freeze when I say freeze.”

“I dii-iid.”

“You think so?”

“Yes, I did.”

He DOES think so, too. “And that, buckaroo, is why you are holding onto the stroller. Hush now.”

And it’s not cute or funny. It’s just DAMNED ANNOYING.

And we get home and Malli pees ALL OVER the bathroom. First accident she’s had in a couple of months. The puddle is ENORMOUS, her dress is saturated, her panties beyond that – and her spare clothes are a long-sleeved shirt and lined jeans, and it’s 34 degrees today and I just stepped in a tributary of the piddle puddle. Ugh. And the hem of my skirt slaps against my ankle. And sticks there, sealed to my skin with pee.

I’m quiet on the outside, but I’m not matter-of-fact about it on the inside. It’s just DAMNED ANNOYING. REALLY, REALLY ANNOYING.

When I call Timmy to change his diaper, he lies on the floor with his head facing me. Not his butt, his head. He has done this every.single.diaper change for a solid year. AND IT’S BLOODY ANNOYING.

It’s naptime now. I think they’ll stay in bed for a while. Until, oh, until the mommies and daddies come. In four-and-a-half hours. It’d be for their own good.

TGIF