No, not that kind, you pervs.
I grew up knowing I wanted to be a mom, see. But what I didn’t know was that though something maternal does live inside of me, nothing childlike, patient or motivated seems to.
I don’t know how to play, and even when I try, I get so damn bored, it’s half the party of a pap smear. I don’t have the ability to answer the same question 14 times in a row without steam coming out of every orifice of my body – and some body parts just shouldn’t be exposed to steam. I cannot really listen a request from a two year old who seems to understand that ‘peeeeeeeese, mama,’ might get her anything in the world. And that if it doesn’t, it might work one of the other 5,318 times she repeats it – but only if she’s sure to get just a little shriller and squeakier each time.
I am cut out for this mama thing, truly. Like three hours a day. I really really look forward to bedtime and naptime and daycare. And oh god, movie time, when I get to do dishes or cook dinner! It’s the equivalent of a long-weekend of romping.
I know that this will probably get better at some near point in the future – that I’ll improve my ability to just be with her, and she’ll get less…two. But, help me, this fantasy I have right this very moment, it’s divine. And seems to be getting closer and closer to reality:
It’s first thing in the morning, but I’ve already got our day started since I thought ahead the night before – her backpack, punk pink and reeking of Dora-love, is waiting by the door. In it is food to feed a two year old for eight hours – a normal two year old, not mine, who barely eats. Just to be safe, there’s some extra pants and underwears, too, since, oh, I didn’t tell you? Today I took away her diapers during the day and she rocked it.
She’s up, she’s with banana – the only thing she’ll even consider for breakfast unless I’ve let an adequate (read: hours and hours and hours, until the meal should be called brunch) amount of time has passed. I’ve got most of my first cup of coffee drank, dark circles have been hidden and blue eyes are sparkling, I’m dressed and my mouth tastes of clean mint. I’m so on, I’ve even had my first half smoke of the day – so I’m not stressing her out with a need to run out the door.
But we do, after I’ve helped her to pull down her selected outfit and done up buttons, and held that little part of the back of her Airwalks up as she slid her feet in (if I don’t, it bends over and that’s just annoying, a bunch of shoe rubbing against your achilles). Maybe some sort of hair taming has taken place, but you know, only if she’s up for it – I’m easy these days, cuz I’m living the life.
Then, the best part comes. She gets packed into her stroller. No, wait, backup! She walks at a normal pace, holding my hand, not making me chase her down or drag her away from a very interesting piece of gum someone’s left on the sidewalk. She’s smiling, I’m smiling. She’s with backpack, I’ve got a lappy.
And I leave her at daycare.
And then? I spend all freaking day writing and writing and talking and typing and drinking a few cups of coffee and snacking as needed. Until dinnertime, when I pick her up and we enter a sumptuously aroma-ed home, since the crockpot has been kicking ass at making dinner while we were out. We eat, we bathe, we spend some time together and then! she sleeps.
I get to cherish the few hours a day that I spend with her. I get to enjoy giving her a bath while she sings songs she learned that day, and when she sticks drawings on the refrigerator. I get to be happy to see her.
Some days, this seems like such a golden dream – something pure imagination has created; others, it seems like it could be right around the corner.
I’m betwixt: I want to be home with her, but I want a lot more breaks now that I’ve got a taste of them; I want to write as much as possible, earn more, pave our future without a dependency on JDawg; I’m committed to home schooling, or at the very least, a very flexible alternative education program for her – but I can’t even seem to handle the day-to-day preparatory stuff.
I get frustrated that she can’t count, still skipping 1, going straight from 2 and 3, to ‘blast-off’! Her ABCs? She still knows them as well as she did about six months ago. Puzzles? Nope, not interested. Building? nuh-uh. She’s not progressing in these aspects, so I find myself giving up. Flash cards are being stored away, non-challenge is being romanced.
She seems genius to me – but she’s so not conventional, and I don’t have the drive to try to get her to learn the basics that her peers have mastered.
And so, I hold this fantasy of someone better than me doing it for me, my way – while I do something for me, my way. So that she can do everything, her way. And I can be okay with whatever that means.
