Crabby to Exhaustion

I wasn't here for most of this story, so I'm relying on Jonathan's account. I was on my way out to the fabric store, Monday, to get more lace for Elena's new pj's (pics to come) and had planned on taking both kids with me. Joseph, however, was crabbier than I have seen him in who knows how long. He wanted to be no further than 18" from me at any given moment, but refused to allow me to put clothes on him. All he really wanted was to be picked up, but I'm not allowed to do that anymore, and he would scream if I sat down for him to sit on my lap. In utter frustration I left him at home with Daddy because there was no way I was taking that out in public. Joseph then proceeded to scream at the door (trying to pry it open, as well) for nearly half an hour after I left, ignoring Daddy and all Daddy's invitations to join him on the couch and explanations that Mommy wasn't right outside anymore. He finally sat down on the floor and yelled at Daddy any time Daddy called to him. Daddy quickly gave it up as a lost cause and went about his business until the sobbing was replaced by the sound of fingers being sucked. The finger sucking was soon replaced, in turn, by silence. Looking over to check in on him, this is what Daddy found.


Daddy scooped him up and popped him into bed and Joseph never even stirred. A very good thing I didn't try taking him with me, indeed.

Insult to Injury

I know I can get preachy to the point of whininess, especially when it comes to the seeming inability to overcome the excesses of American life, but I'm nothing to Detroit. The New York Times wrote an article, last week, reporting on the wailing set up by American car manufacturers because congress wants to raise their fleets' mean mpg from 27.5 (22.2 for trucks) to 35. They're going along with it, now that they can't see a way out of it, but I can see their beady eyes focusing on flex-fuel to get out of it. And worse, Bush plans to veto the bill anyway (mostly because of the gas tax hike). We still pay way less for gas than Europe, though.

What would I do? Well personally, if given all the resources I needed, I'd get a car with the best gas economy I could find, and wire it to also run on solar. I'd also put one of those strips on every cell phone on the planet, and in the corner of south-facing windows, but that's for another day.

Misanthropic Malignancy

I just got back from the elementary school playground, and there are no words to properly express my rage. There were two of us: mothers, each with two children, each with one who was well under the age of two. That wasn't the problem, though. The problem was the pack (for lack of a better word) of 14-16 year-old kids (pretty evenly divided guy/girl) running around the open space next to the playscape, playing some variation on tag. As Joseph and I moved off toward the swings, the teens converged on the playscape climbing over, under and on top of the equipment. Elena was still playing in the rocks beneath them, until their play started to get rough and she came to join us. Then they started throwing rocks. These were not soft lobs, either. I saw at least four of them throwing handfuls of rocks, full force, in all directions. Handfuls of rocks are like buckshot, though--you're bound to hit something. And, indeed, the ricochets kept getting closer and closer to the six of us who had taken refuge at the swings. I was livid. "All of you!" (yes, I shouted, but it's the same shout the police use to quell riots) "No more rocks!" Did this stop them? No. They had the nerve to move to the other side of the play scape and continue on, as if the extra five feet would buffer us from their stupidity. We were trapped on the swings, and Joseph was wiggling to get down. We couldn't even leave because they were between me and the stroller. And thus, I snapped. I didn't threaten, because I had no real authority over them, but I so wanted to use their cell phones to call every one of their mothers and ask why they had lost the basic social manners that my 4-6 year-old nieces and nephews can handle just fine. One of them protested that it was a public park so I couldn't kick them out. Since when has "public" meant "I can do whatever I want and you can't do anything about it," though? And what about me? All I wanted was to let my children play without being scared for their safety. I tolerated the rough play and climbing on top of things, but I draw the line at projectiles. Furious and unable to let my children play anywhere near them, I left. And then the ringleader told me to have a nice day. Please, tell me we're raising our children to be better than this! I do my best, but it's hard not to feel defeated when faced with this sort of thing.

Stepping on Cracks

Elena is currently lying on the living room floor, in tears, screaming "I can't come down there," referring to the fact that she was upstairs ten minutes ago and wanted me to carry her down. I said no and that she had feet of her own, and the result was as described above. She's been very whiny, lately, mostly in regards to being carried. Do I just lay down the law and let her do it herself from now on? I can't indulge her every whim, but the back-and-forth between "yes I can" and "no I can't" is causing the whining to escalate when the latter comes up. The fact of the matter is, she's big! Twenty-five pounds of giggling pre-schooler is a lot, especially when there's another twenty pounds of wiggling toddler on the other side, which there usually is. Thank goodness my kids are on the small side, and Kim and Jessica, I don't know how you did it with your Amazonian girls. (Now she's tearfully taunting the cat into swiping at her, at which point she'll come crying to me with a story about how she's been wronged in life.) When does this get better? And what are the best creative outlets (on a small budget, with minimal travel) for an active and very bright nearly-three-year-old? I know it kills her that we're stuck in the house with a moody mom and nowhere to go. We can't even walk to the playground, anymore, now that schools back in. The next closest one is a half-hour walk away, and if I'm going to walk that far I'd rather walk to the store, where it's air conditioned. The problem is that walking to the store means two hours in the stroller, for the kids. At least when we go to the park they get to run around for that middle hour, and they fall asleep on the way home. Sigh... Anyway, I need to finish tidying up the house. I'll see some of you soon.

"I Can't!"

For the last two days, every time I ask Elena to do something, she tells me: "I can't." The sheer volume of things she can't do is quite staggering, actually. Not only is she apparently unable to go potty (she does anyway, just at a different time--no worries there), she can't eat tortillas, she can't play puzzles, she can't say sorry, she can't take breaths, she can't take baths, and she can't let anyone else say any prayers. I put her to bed a few minutes ago ("I can't go bed!") and as I left I told her I love her. On my way back down the stairs I heard "I can't love you!" echo down the baby monitor, accompanied by much wailing and proverbial gnashing of teeth. I'm running out of reverse psychology tricks to run on her, and in the meantime we seem to be butting heads all day long. It's a good thing my mood is up and I've been pretty mellow today.

In other news, Joseph was proclaiming the presence of the car out his window, yesterday, on the way home from church. "Gah, gah!" he said, staring at the SUV in the next lane. He also took a step (stumble) across the room, today, reaching for Daddy.

Fit to Scream

All the experts say that a toddler throwing a fit is a sign that she loves you. Does she have to love me that much, though? There were no less than four screaming, sobbing, fall-on-the-floor tantrums today--a personal record for her. It's usually an average of one every 5-8 days. Maybe. So what is a mom to do? I can't let her fling Joseph's food onto the floor, and we really didn't yell that much--just an exasperated "Elena!" and a lot of disapproving "you can't do that" while she panicked and flailed at the Cheerios until they were all on the floor. Was it worth the fifteen minutes of screaming and contortions that followed when we took her to the stairs to reap the rewards of her actions and sit still for a bare two minutes? I can't let her play with the knives in the dishwasher, either, even if it was only a butter knife. And do I not give her the cheese that I was going to hand her anyway, just because she sobbed like her best friend had died when the cheese didn't come *now*? And what do I do when she whines that she wants more bedtime songs instead in praying, then screams all through the prayer because she didn't get to say it? Well, that one, at least, was easy. I let her say a second prayer after I scooped each of the kids up into their respective beds. But the original question remains. What do you do when a screaming fit leaves you fit to scream?