Why is *tomorrow* Mother's Day? A day filled with flowers and cards and brunch buffets and kids on their best behavior. I think that every day that I don't pack you up and send you to reform school should be Mother's Day. That's what I think.
Take today, for example:
Daddy and I parted you out today. Daddy took Wavy to lunch and to the park, and I took Jake to the beach in South Lake. Presumably for lunch, as well, but we didn't get that far. But I get ahead of myself.
The pier was scenic and fun, but nerve-wracking. This particular pier doesn't have any kind of a railing on it. You kept tip-toeing out to the edge and saying, "Don't fall in! Don't fall in the water!" Hardy-har. You're a funny boy. When I was your age, walking on piers terrified me; if I could see any kind of daylight or water between the boards underfoot, I was a wreck.
Afterwards, the beach was problem-free. It's still rather chilly up there, so we kept our shoes and stuff on, and you spent a couple hours doing what little boys do in the sand: throwing stuff in the water, burying your Hot Wheels cars, throwing more stuff in the water and climbing on rocks. You didn't even start twitching or anything when it was time to go; you just shook off the sand and strode (strided? strid?) towards the car.
I needed to stop at the ATM for some cash to buy lunch. I was planning on getting you a hot dog and a turkey burger for myself at Izzy's (all-time favorite burger joint). Perhaps splurging and sharing a basket of rings. Oh, I was sooooo looking forward to it. On the way to the bank, you kept saying, "I've got money, momma. Let's use my money. No ATM. Use my money." And you kept trying to hand me invisible dollar bills. Sweet thought, but I was pretty sure that invisible money would only buy us invisible food, so I headed for the ATM anyway.
You insisted on getting out of the truck with me. I knew things were heading south from the way you were acting. Finally, at the actual ATM, you started shouting at me. "Don't push the buttons, momma! Don't push the buttons! My turn! My turn!" Yes, you had convinced yourself that the ATM was a video game, and that I was bogarting both our turns at the controls. I grabbed my cash and hustled you back to the truck.
I knew then that lunch was a wash. You kept pleading with me to go back, go back. And as we passed up Izzy's on our left, your pleas turned to "Go home LATER, momma! Go home LATER! I don't wanna go home! Go home LATER!" Which continued for the entire 45 minutes it took us to get home, and then for a good half hour after we got home, at which point Daddy and Wavy finally came home, and Daddy took over, while I locked myself in the bedroom and took a two-hour nap.
So imagine my dismay around dinnertime, when WAVY starts in on me. Sweetheart, I feel for you. You're supremely pissed that you have some molars coming in, and you've been mighty cranky for the past few days. So you're climbing up and down me, howling and biting and for some reason trying to rip my incision on my neck open. I finally get you settled down at the table to eat some dinner, which you eat with gusto. While I'm cleaning up afterwards, you remain in your booster seat and laugh and play and watch me do dishes. Then I turn around and you are happily covered in head to toe in your own vomit, still laughing and playing.
Fighting the impulse to drag you, chair and all, out to the back yard to hose you off, I manage to get you unbuckled and undressed without getting too much of it on me, and I get you in the tub. We have a fine time for a while, until I look down and suddenly notice the baby poop floating in the water. That's when I lost it. That's when I actually started crying. Crying because of baby poop in the bathwater. I AM crazy. Oh, and then Jakob walks in, and starts hooting with glee. "Baby pooped in the tub! Baby pooped! In the tub!" So there I am, crying, and trying not to puke up my own dinner, all whilst fishing Wavy out of the tub and trying like hell to keep Jake away. (I don't know what his intentions were, but surely they were nefarious...)
Anyway, you both got a quick lights out and a very dark, very short version of a Chicken Little bedtime story (all the townspeople die, and the reason the sky is falling is a giant, cranky baby on the moon is throwing chunks of outerspace at the Earth...), which brings us to now. I think I'm going to have a drink.
So yes, I vote that a day like today, in which St. Momma of Helvetica didn't burn the children at the stake, when they so clearly deserved it, should be Mother's Day, not that canned excuse of a holiday that we're currently stuck with. Oh, and in lieu of cards and mimosas and buffet lines, let's just celebrate with cold, hard cash. 'kay? 'kay.
Love you both. I really do.
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