It has been one of those weeks where I become convinced that it really does take more then a set of parents to raise a child. And I don’t mean just to teach them and mold them in to good little citizens…I mean so they’ll still be alive at the end of the day. Friends, supports and sometimes just witnesses are essential. More than once I have just headed for the Mall because in the presence of dozens of strangers I am more likely to act like more like the mother I want to be than the psycho witch I seem to turn in to when no one is watching.
Yesterday (or as I now post….about a month ago….) was one of those days where I was flipping surprisingly quickly from being the best mother in the world to a dumba$$. Mr. Knevel was away so I thought I would treat the kids to a breakfast at Dunks before school. This was partly selfishly motivated. Did you heard about the Today Show anniversary donuts? Well…I had and I loved them, but you had to get there early to get one. I figured if we went before school, I’d get my donut AND get to look like a fun Mom. Fun for about 15 minutes. Until I had to more or less shout at them I would never buy them another donut again of they didn’t get in the flippin car.
We finally get in the car and I put on good music. We rock out, we laugh, morning salvaged. I looked good until we get to school and I realize it was Wednesday and that’s the day Pouty has lunch at school and I’d forgotten to make her one. Since I spent all my money on donuts, I have to *borrow* money from Word Girl so Pouty could buy lunch (mind you I could have saved time by simply lighting the $3 on fire right there in the parking lot since not only will she not eat school lunch, but I was later told she dropped her tray on the floor). I was glad I remembered about lunch…I was glad I didn’t scream at WG about her loan terms (the money had come from me in the first place and she wasn’t going to School Store until the next day). So, while we had only been up for an hour and a half we had some ups and downs. Some good Mommy moments and some not so good. Also by these events I ended up dropping my boy Evel off at pre-school early. An early drop off meant a few precious extra moments where I could stop feeling like a bi-polar lunatic Mother who couldn’t even remember to feed her kid anything other than a donut. But this rare drop off event led me to bump in to a good friend who although holding it together was obviously about to lose HIS schmit with his kids. Well….one of them.
As I think I have mentioned before….Pouty and Evel’s best friends are brother and sister and luckily Mr. Knevel and I get on really well with their parents. So well, that is it not uncommon for me to turn up at their house at say 10am and still find myself there for dinner. My Howler Monkeys are just like theirs….we are all well versed in the strong-willed child…and we all get really irritated when one of our Howler Monkeys decides to freak out, screw with our day or more or less make us look like crappy parents. We get each other and it is so much easier to have friends who orbit the same parenting planet that you do.
The problem was not Evel’s buddy….it was Pouty’s. She was standing there…sobbing…refusing to be taken to Kindergarten….hysterical….for no reason. This was the second time she had pulled the act this week and it is an act she saves for her Dad. When she pulled it on Monday she saved her crazy for when Daddy had walked home after drop-off and she tried to flee off school property. Today there was no getting to school. She had latched on and he figured he could at least get one to school on time and when he battled to shake off the latched on banshee….well, there would be fewer parents watching. And judging. His dread was not the child’s tantrum…it was looking like an a$$hat in front of the school…..for the second time that week. As there is strength in numbers…not to mention I am much calmer and rational with crazy kids that aren’t my own…..I offered to go with him.
I really didn’t do much other than tell him he was doing all the right stuff. I made sure his daughter didn’t unbuckle, or leap out of the moving car. I opened doors and was the one to alert office staff we needed help. We detached her and legged it. I told the teacher what was going on. We left the building more or less giving high-5s. 20 minutes later the banshee was 100% fine and asking why they had morning meeting without her. Because there were two of us tag-teaming the kid, there was less than half the drama and minimal judging. Or at least less judging to our faces and more eye rolling and laughing at the kid and not the crappy inept parents.
So after all this ramble….my main point is this. That day was one in which I got to be both the Mayor AND the village idiot ….flip-flopping between the two with in seconds of each other. I also got proof that when the village idiots unite….we look better….we things get done. We exude competence we may or may not have. So when you’re not the Mayor look around the village….look to other villages……or just knock on my Crack House door. I am the idiot who is usually very happy to help make you look better and convince you not to ship the kids off to boarding school….at least for a little while.
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