I don’t brag very much about anything, but I have to say that my child is one of the cutest kids in the world. She has eight teeth: four on top and four on the bottom. When I see her little pearly whites glaring at me as her lips stretch ear to ear, no matter what mood the smile finds me in, I’m happy.
Rachael dances, sings and climbs like a little monkey. She is also developing a great sense of humor. Whenever I decide to relax on the floor she will get a devious look on her face, let out a war cry and come barreling across the room catapulting herself right onto my back knocking the wind out of me. Then she will laugh endlessly. Apparently an attempt to break my back in half is funny to her, as is dropping food on the dog’s back just out of his reach forcing him to arch and writhe until he can get his mouth around it. Actually, that part is funny and I’m amused by it, too.
The other thing about my toddler’s development that tends to catch me off guard is her sense of entitlement. Since she was born, she has been able to demand anything of me, now this action has culminated in her believing that everything is hers and everyone around her exists solely for serving her. Basically, when someone calls my daughter a princess, they are pretty accurate. The other day she had a bowl of Jeff’s homemade M&M ice cream. They were originally going to share, but you give the toddler the spoon and it’s not coming back. I decided to forego the ice cream and had my barely-has-a-taste, low fat fudgesicle, not because I’m health conscious, it’s just that I would like half a chance at looking good naked again. I should have known better than to bring out my fudgesicle in front of Rachael. I really should have been wiser when I decided to let her have just a taste believing that she would take a lick and be done with it since her ice cream was far better. I was a dumb shit for failing to realize that what falls into Rachael’s hands, becomes Rachael’s possession. She quickly grabbed the fudgesicle and began dipping it in the ice cream as if to mock me. I tried to talk her into giving it back. She would smile, move the fudgesicle close to my mouth, then pull it away and giggle. Unfortunately, she is too young for me to begin using the whole “I gave birth to you” guilt that serves as the cornerstone to every Jewish mother’s argument. I finally gave up and went to the freezer to get another fudgesicle. As I unwrapped it and sat back down at the dinner table, Rachael smiled, put her empty hand out and said “thank you.” Jeff and I collapsed in hysterics.
Although there are days I just want to kill her like Monday morning when she woke up at 5:30 a.m. and kept whining. We brought her into our bed, gave her a bottle, turned on Noggin and she continued to just whine. I finally returned her to her crib where she cried for 15 minutes and fell asleep until 9:30 a.m. Unfortunately by this time, Jeff and I were wide awake and when I was finally able to catch some more winks, I slept for a whole 40 minutes before I had to be back up again. She was in a crabby mood that day, and only became endearing when we put her to bed that night.
Kids are weird creatures. Given their affinity for goofy music, their ability to change from ecstatic joy to hysterical screaming, and their rejection of a delicious meal in favor of Chef Boyardee Ravioli, I sometimes wonder if they are completely human. For as big of a pain in the ass as she is, Rachael does make my day. Actually she will usually make my day, drive me crazy, have me completely exhausted, and leave me in bellyaching laughter all in the course of two hours. Put all that emotion on a 16-hour loop then you’ll have the answer to the question: why mothers are so nuts.
There are days when I’m in complete frustration and mull over the idea of getting a full-time job and putting her in daycare all day, but then I think of all of the munchkin smiles I would miss. I also wonder if I could deal with the guilt that society seems to give women who choose to work instead of staying home despite the fact that this same society opts to measure people less on their character and more on the amount of yearly income they bring in. A scarier prospect for me would be the chance that I wouldn’t miss staying home at all, and that I would enjoy a job more than I enjoy blowing on Rachael’s dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets to cool them down at lunchtime. I doubt the later would be true, so for now I just stay at home, work my part-time, flexible schedule job, try to write with Dora the Explorer singing in the background, and watch my smiley girl dancing while she catches the stars.
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