Got Milk?

Me: "Hello, my son is a patient. He's 16 months old and has been on Soy Formula since he was a baby due to his lactose intolerance."

Nurse: "Okay. How do you spell his last name?"

Me: "S. H. I. V. E. L."

Nurse: "S. (pause, pause, pause). H. (pause)...

Me: "I. V. E. L. Yes."

Nurse: "Okay. So what's wrong?"

Me: "I need to know what to try instead of whole milk. Harry can't drink Vitamin D milk due to his lactose issues... It makes his diapers --- beige colored. The output? It's beige and he's really cranky."

Nurse: "Okay. Hold on..."

Nurse: "Ma'am? You need to give him whole milk. But you can do it gradually-"

Me: "No, I can't. Remember? His POOP TURNS BEIGE AND IT MAKES HIM CRANKY! AND GASSY! What are the alternatives? Soy? Lactose-free? WHAT?!"

(In my defense I had been having a few rotten days so the fact that yet another person was refusing to listen to me before "helping" and offering their "advice" was enough to throw me into a barely-controlled-Julia-Sugarbaker-style-rage.)

Nurse: "Okay. Hold on... Ma'am? You can try Lactaid."

Me: "Thank you."

I hung up the phone and collapsed into a crying fit that let my kid giggling hysterically while he clutched my knees with two slimy baby hands (he laughs when I cry - evil, huh?).

You know that point? The point where you've been stretched and stretched and have feigned uncaring and politeness while others talk over you, or at you, or ignore you all together? I was at that point. Or rather, I was past it. So I had a pity party of one right there on my beige, apparently poop-colored couch, while my baby tried to cheer me up by showing me all 12 of his teeth at once.

Hmm. Maybe it's not others who are inconsiderate but maybe it's me. Maybe I've grown uber-sensitive in my little hermit shell here with my untalking companion and have relied too much on PBS to guide me in life. Because, unlike the world of kid's shows, people are not yielding to others, they do not give a crap about your issues, dreams, hopes and aspirations because they're too busy with their own.

After my sob-fest I picked up my darling jackal and gave him a big, sloppy kiss.

"Don't be mean when you get older, okay? Don't forget to listen when others are talking, and don't forget that mommy is a pretty, pretty princess - even if she will eventually be a big 'ol blind, blob of blubber someday..."

"Shit," he said.

Oh well - I still have a few years to mold him...

You Are What You Eat

"Balls."

I am a woman who thoroughly enjoys food. Eating makes me happy, comforts me when I'm sad and calms my worried mind through the gentle art of baking, sauteing, mixing and even just chewing. But lately I've been eating like a fast-food employee - quick and on the sly.

As Baby Harry gets to be pickier about what he shoves, double-handed, into his mouth, I, too, have to be careful as to how long I fix my food and how long I take to enjoy it. Which is usually not long.

And he monitors what I'm eating. And I will often find myself in mid-bite only to feel two or three little fingers wiggling my lips open. I laugh - he eats what falls out and I say: "Ew! You're such a boy! Gross!" and we go about our merry way.

However, last weekend while we were all at the mall eating "MOR CHKN" - I fed him a few bits of cut-up nugget. One of which stuck to his face. So I plucked it off. And ate it.

I.

ATE.

IT.

OFF OF HIS FACE!!!!

I jerked to a stop in mid-chew and painfully swallowed.

"I just ate food off of our baby's face," I said to my husband who was busily (and weirdly) peeling all the batter off of his fried chicken sandwich.

He stopped. Smiled. "Priceless," he said and went back to his OCD (Obsessive Chicken Disorder) and offering me no comfort or advice on the tragic face-eating event that just occurred.

I was horrified.

What on earth possessed me to pluck a food morsel off of my baby's red cheeks and then put that same piece of food --- IN MY MOUTH?

Can I expect more of this in the future?

Will I be that parent that doesn't bat an eye when I'm offered a slobbery pre-licked popsicle?

A pre-chewed cheeto?

Only time will tell, I guess...

And oh - look - there's a cheerio on his chin....

:)

Border Patrol

"We had a little accident," my husband deftly steered our non-chopping-fingers-off Maclaren stroller around the throngs of people in the bookstore.

"What happened?" I took my son who was red-faced and sniffling through the liquid that had pooled in his eyes and little round nostrils during his latest public freak-out. Freak-outs that were becoming more frequent. And loud. And migraine-inducing.

"A guy we were talking to accidentally dropped a cd on his head. But he caught it before it really hit him. In the head. I think he needed a Momma hug."

"I'm sure he's fine," I said and walked our little cherry-cherub over to the magazines. "Here, baby. You sit and look out the window while Momma looks at all these cooking mags."

"Coooooing!" Baby Harry said to me as he patted the glass.

No, I don't know what "cooooooing" means but I'm sure it translates to, "You're a cool mom, Mom!" or "I will kill you in your sleep with my tiny oatmeal-covered hands." Whatev.

I was a third of the way through a shiny article all about cheese (CHEESE!!!) when I heard the sound of muffled laughter. I looked down and then stepped closer to my loving, well-dressed, perfect little man, son.

Who was licking the glass like a mad man.

Full throttle XXX tongue action with both hands next to his face.

"Ack! No, don't lick the glass!" I cried and wedged him away from the cesspool of germs. "Harry! Border's couldn't even afford to stay open I KNOW they haven't been able to spring for a bottle of Windex! Ew! We DON'T LICK GLASS!" I said to him in a firm, but not mean, tone.

At least I didn't think it was mean.

But his face, which had faded to a healthy hot pink, flashed devil-red again.

"wwaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!' and off he went!

Into the mall!

Into the hall!

Into the crotch of a man-who-looked-like-Daddy-but-wasn't!

Okay - I caught him in time - but didn't dare make eye contact with the dude who almost received a snotty toddler in the crotch.

I picked him up and walked him back into the bookstore where everyone in line turned to look at the woman who was surely beating the tar out of a poor child. Instead, they saw me, a fat sweaty girl in a too-low-cut shirt, trying to keep her boobs out of view and her child in a fully upright position while he wailed like a banshee in her now defunct right ear.

"Yeah, that one's mine," Big Harry said to the woman in line behind him as I dove for my purse and - the paci.

"Plug the hole!" I screamed. "PLUG. THE. HOLE!!!"

After I managed to calm the Rage of Baby Zeus, I realized something very important.

Next time I'm in a crowded store full of people trying to get 10% off a Dolly Parton cd or the latest trashy romance novel, I will be sure to be armed with a pocket full of pacis.

And hand sanitizer.

And ---- next time---- I'll let him make out with whatever piece of glass he wants.

Hard core.

:)

Bitchy Bitchy Bitchy Me

"You've become more of a bitch since Harry's been born," my husband said to me while turning the wheel of "Bessie" our Toyota Sienna "Holy-crap-I-bought-a-min-van" mini van.

"I have not!" I defended myself immediately. And then paused. "I just hate stupid people." I paused again. "And slow moving people... And people who can't seem to get out of my way when the kid is screaming or hungry or tired or... Okay, fine - I'm a bitch." I resigned.

"You yelled at that waitress," he pointed out, continuing to beat a dead horse.

"I did not!"

"You said 'GO GET OUR FOOD!'."

"Well," I crossed my arms and huffed. "Well, she was trying to tell me that it took thirty minutes to make a piece of GRILLED chicken and a SALAD. And then when I said that it shouldn't have she just kept repeating it was in the window and that chicken takes longer to cook and IT WAS IN THE WINDOW! So I merely suggested she GO GET IT!" I concluded my rant and sat back against the leather seat while my husband digested my obviously dignified line of reasoning.

"You were a bitch," he giggled.

"Yeah, well she was an idiot," I said huffily.

Since becoming a parent I have found that my filter has loosened. Whereas before I would've just left the restaurant or complained gently to a manager, I now found it necessary to blow up and turn green like the freakin' Incredible Holly-shaped hulk in order to put people in their place for slighting my child. Maybe it's stemming from a childhood filled with "respect your elder" speeches and "be seen and not heard" and all that - or maybe my hormones are just flexing their feminine wiles - I don't know.

But - she really was stupid. I mean really, really stupid. Case in point. Harry ordered "Two chicken breasts and two sides of mashed potatoes."

The idiot's follow-up question? "What do you want for your second side?"

Harry stared at her until one of his eyes dilated more that the other. I mean, she was so incredibly useless that he couldn't even fathom her level of uselessness.

For all I know, had I not ordered her to "go get our food" she would have stood in the middle of the diner and continued to explain why we hadn't gotten our food for ANOTHER 3o minutes.

And then, well, then I would've had to have cold-cocked her with my giant Mom purse.

And I guarantee - she wouldn't have woken up for at least ---- 30 minutes. :)