June 2004 Archives

Today is our 9th wedding anniversary. Josh is away on a business trip (he'll be back tomorrow), but it's late at night, the kid's finally in bed, and I'm feeling super mushy and nostalgic. So consider yourselves warned.

This morning, I cracked under the pressure of The Worst Tantrum Ever. Yes, I actually yelled at my kid. (Course it didn't do a damn thing as far as stopping or changing the tantrum but it did at least make me feel a tiny bit less likely to implode from the stress myself...is that so wrong?) I tell myself it's just a combination of Eli being 3, and the fact that I was gone in NY all last week, and now this week Josh is gone on a biz trip too. Eli's routine has been rocked and he's acting out, I know this.

But damn, the randomly triggered freak out, complete with screaming and sobbing and flailing about wildly, that lasts for over an hour? Just unbearable. I had to literally hold him down and physically force him into his clothes, then pick him up and carry him to the car so I could get him to daycare so I could get to work on time. The whole way there he was bawling and yelling "I don't WANT to go to Dawn's house! I! Want! To! Stay! Ho-o-o-ome!" with that heartbreaking little hiccupy cadence. Ugh. I truly abhor the whole "I'm bigger than you are so I can physically force you to do something you don't want" dynamic. It makes me feel totally abusive. But what is a working parent to do? I swear, I felt like I had post-traumatic stress syndrom all morning. I guess I am now a combat-hardened veteran of the Parenting Wars. (And yet, I feel compelled to point out that I will never get any sort of decorative medal for my efforts, let alone a parade.)

But on the positive side, tonight I am giddy with the success of having taught myself how to finally put up quick 'n dirty photo webpages, so I can now finally put all those zillions of digital family photos out into the world. Hooray! (Stay tuned and I will post the link once I've gotten everything up at least in rough draft form.) Super huge thank you smooches go to Dri for showing me the light (and Transmit, Textedit and iPhoto's export-as-webpage feature). Rawk! \m/

One last little blogthought before I'm out of contact in NY working my ass off for 5 days.

Ok I just couldn't resist adding one last "pit" moment, given how today has turned out:

-Being torn away early from work (where I'm stressing out cos it's the last day before I leave on a week long biz trip) to pick up the suddenly scarily feverish kid, and then having him barf on my shoulder while trying to rush him (gently, lovingly) to the bathroom.

It's one of life's worst parenting moments...your kid barfing on you. But you know what? You take it. It's only barf. And this is how love goes. Mix it with worry, with vomit, with whining, with fear--it's still the best thing in the world. I am somewhat amazed to find that I would honestly walk through fire (real fire, with coals underneath my feet and flames crisping my eyelashes) for my child. Strange, but true.

And as long as I'm warming up to a rant here, let me just say that being a parent (and especially a full time working parent) takes a lot of courage, and a boatload of just, well, determination. The good ol' fashioned, grit your teeth and suck it up kind of determination. The salad days of selfishness are gone, gone, gone. I am now all too familiar with that moment when I realize I'm starting to sink in the swamp of overwhelm, but I slog on anyway, through the mud and the bugs and the rain and the cold, refusing to give up. I'm a fucking unsung hero, I tell you. Frodo ain't got nothin' on me.

Some days I feel like the Universe is constantly testing me to see how much I can take (with the intention of someday finally breaking me? I hope not...). But so far I am happy to report that I am still the Heavyweight Champion of Suck-it-up, a multiple gold medalist in the Suck-it-up Olympics. Bring me my Bard. Oh that's right, I don't have one. And no one will ever really know what it's like to practice this kind of daily heroism. Except maybe the other members of Team Mom (or Dad). Go team.

I was going to just bitch about a bunch of stressful or shitty things going on in my life over the last few days, but thought it might be more challenging (and hopefully perspective shifting) to do it this way instead.

Go here if you want to read Josh's version of how we spent most of our Memorial Day Weekend cleaning his parents' broken down and pathetically filthy house, only to have them freak out and basically accuse us of evil ulterior motives (like wanting to stealing their stuff). And of course, I'm the ultimate villain here (greedy gold-digging Jewess that I always have been), because to blame anything on their son would require more complicated emotions than just scapegoating me.

As much as I can intellectually understand the reasons why they had the reaction(s) they did (Josh's dad's upbringing of scarcity and lack of permanence, Josh's mom's inherent suspicion and her true pessimist's eagerness to jump immediately to believing the worst of any situation/person), I just don't get how they can so fundamentally and willfully misunderstand what we were trying to do. It went kind of like this:

"Hey Mom and Dad, ever since Mom broke her feet it seems like you've been having a hard time keeping the house up, so we thought we'd come over and help clean up some, make it a nicer place for Mom to spend her convalescence in."

(Suspiciously) "Well, okay I guess."

[clean clean clean, sort, box, stack, toss, scrub, vaccuum, sweep, come back again the next day and do some more]

"Augh! You threw away all my stuff! Where's my _______? I guess she wanted it for her own. You've raped us. I've lost everything."

"Uh, you're welcome."

(!)

I mean really, how do you respond to something like this, so clearly irrational, such an immediate escalation of hostilities with no rational basis? I totally feel bad for Josh, because obviously this hits at a lot of his core issues with his parents. And the drama is not over yet. But for God's sake, I fucking spent long sweaty hours of my precious spare time doing disgusting things (scrubbing the toilet, pulling gobs of hair out of the shower drain, moving furniture to vaccuum up what looked like months worth of dirt and random crap, going to the stinky-ass dump, emptying Josh's mom's BEDPAN) and this is the thanks I get, to be insulted and accused of thievery and psychological rape? Get some perspective, people. I truly didn't do all this because I wanted to hurt or violate anyone. I did it because I have a strong feeling that those we love (especially direct family members--though this sub-group clearly makes more sense with my own family of origin) should not have to live in squalor (even if self-induced). And that if we can do anything to help those we love, we should. (Charity begins at home and all that.) Is that so wrong?

Bleah.

(Thanks to Ian for the title of this entry. It totally encapsulates how I feel about it all.)