Mama Had a Toddler and Her Head Popped Off

I’m chewing my lip again. I’ve returned to that place I escaped so long ago. Toddler-hood. And it’s all the Hell I remember it to be and more. The place that makes the strong feel like failures. And there’s nothing more than live in survival mode to get you through.

This morning, all I wanted to just make the breakfast. Wanted to and had to are synonymous. Maybe I also wanted to take a bathroom break, meditate, write, drink more coffee in an empty house with all day alone to look forward to. But I’m smoking crack if I think I’m getting a soul satisfying amount of alone time in the next 16 years. Presently, at 48, I fear that when Fiona gets dropped off at college, I’ll be dropped off at the retirement village door. Lot’s of alone time there.

I had to peel her screaming conflicted self off me and lock her out of the kitchen to finish making breakfast. Seems everyone, family and strangers alike, want to guess why the baby is fussy. Is it/it must be a) She needs to poop, or b) she’s cutting teeth, or c) she didn’t get enough sleep, or d) she’s hungry. This past two weeks, it was each one at the same time AND she’s trying to figure out if she needs me or not and if that’s a bad thing or a good thing. And if she stops needing me, will I disappear or abandon her?

Later, I discovered that silence, although bliss, needs to be questioned and investigated and there’s no such thing as Toddler proof. She’d taken a blue ball point pen and scribbled a 3 inch by 3 inch glob of blue ink on the arm of my chair cover. I pulled her out of the chair and peeled off the cover and promptly sprayed it with Resolve, Shouted it, and added clothes detergent and then scrubbed at it with a scrub brush. It worked but gift horse silences need to be heeded from now on. She’s a member of the loud family. There will always be a price to pay for her silence. 

We’ve begun to put her in the time out chair aka the thinking chair, or what my first-born called the Fixing chair. That has done a wonderful job of allowing her some separation from her out of control impulses. She actually seems to be grateful for the time and boundary.

I would be lying if I said I was looking forward to the rest of the toddler years with anything but dread. It’s Clash of the willful Titans and she may be cute to you but she also has no issues with you. It’s my soul she needs to devour before she can move on to toy with yours. She is our little Fuego Rojo. Wished I took naps. Maybe the unconsciousness would distract me from the twitch that’s starting up again under my left eye. Hello irksome old friend.