“Crash”

I feel like I need a drink. Not a shot of bourbon or anything. But not a celebratory drink either. Maybe a mojito...I haven’t had one of those in a while.

It’s 11:45. AM.

Now before we get into some serious discussion about alcoholism or bad parenting (I am guilty of neither, I SWEAR), I must explain that some days are just like this and that’s just life so DEAL, ok? Ok. For the last 2 hours Punkin has been nursing, rubbing his eyes, crying, whining, yelling - and boy, can that kid really YELL, like mad angry what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you-Mom? yell. I can’t do anything right, in his eyes, because for the last 2 hours I have failed at taming his maniacal-whirling-dervish of a brain and flying-acrobat-feet-in-the-air body, failed at conducing scrumpy, frumpy, puffalumpy sleepy baby cuddled and slumpy in pillows and fleece. I have failed, and sleep doesn’t come, and crawl onward we must.

So now we sit, I try to ignore his over-tired, annoyed and frustrated yells in my general direction because I won’t let him play with yesterdays half-empty coffee cup, and I retreat to writing about a situation I just can not fix in the hopes that maybe when I’m done trying to sum it all up, everything will have fixed itself. DREAM ON, Mama.

I could go on and on about our recent sleep troubles and why I’m caught between doing everything in my power to get my kid to sleep or keeping a tiny bit of my own sanity while I wait out whatever it is that’s keeping him awake and indulge myself in the meantime. But instead, I’ll point you in the direction of an insightful, honest, and moderately depressing (only to moms and drug addicts) article in this month’s Brain Child: The Absinthe-Minded Parent. Unfortunately, this article isn’t available through the magazine’s website. Bummer.

Basically, it compares the stupor induced by the popular french beverage, as depicted in a painting by Edgar Degas in 1876, to the stupor of a tired mother of four. Ok, I know, I only have one kid. But sometimes he likes to pretend he’s four kids, like multiplying the time it should take to fall asleep by a factor of four or more. It is not a mental place we mothers (should) find ourselves in too often, and at times is quite normal to go from this state of apoplectic daze to cheerful with a side of moderate enthusiasm because, for example, junior has stopped crying or yelling at his inadequate mother and instead thrown his hands in the air, roller-coaster style, and given her a big goofy grin as if to say “Wheeee....isn’t parenting FUN???”

Yes. Yes it is.