Flake
Motherhood has turned me into a flake. I’ve always been a big fan of punctuality, habitually showing up at least ten minutes before the start of any event. At times it was almost embarrassing, depending on the crowd, since I’d be the first to arrive.
These days time has almost no meaning. I consider myself “on time” if I’m only ten minutes late. I feel guilty and hope my friends don’t talk about me running on “Carrie time” but I just can’t seem to get my act together.
Today I was supposed to meet a friend at 10:30. I needed to be in the car by 10 am to make it on time. My phone rang at 9:20 and guess where I was. Still in bed, totally doped out sleeping. MisterE and I had a bad night so I was relieved to get some sleep in the morning, but couldn’t believe that I was going to be sooooooo late for our social hour. After dealing with breakfast, showering, poop and an empty gas tank I was a whole hour late.
Then tonight I was supposed to meet the same friend and another friend for an impromptu Mom’s Night Out, but guess what? I called Mike to get the go-ahead and he had a #*$&#*(# conference call with the #(*$*@@#( Aussies.
I’ve also become that mother–the one you look at and say “I’d never allow my child to behave that way.” We were at a big mall today and Erik was screaming because the stroller is an instrument of torture so I had to free him. He took off running and I was chasing him through the mall with my stroller while he obsessed over the Sketchers store. People thought he was cute, but I could also tell they were thinking “why is she letting that midget kid run loose?” He is still mostly wearing 6-9 month clothing since he’s such a shorty so people are really impressed that such a little guy can get around as well as he does.
I don’t want to have a spoiled kid. I don’t want him to think that he can just around around all over the place. I don’t want to cause trouble for other members of society by having a wild child. I don’t want to coop him up and force him to sit still when he’d clearly rather be running around. I don’t want to listen to him scream. I try to avoid taking him to places that require coopage, but sometimes it is necessary to go places that aren’t very kid friendly. There were tons of babies sitting happily in their strollers, content to look around and play with their toes. My kid is not happy or content. What to do, what to do? How do you balance the physical needs of a child with the need to socialize him correctly? How do I keep him from being spoiled rotten?
At least he is cute and generally likable. We went to the gym for the first time in five days and the childcare ladies all oohhed and ahhhed and said how much they missed him. He obviously missed the childcare room as well. I sat him down and he took off for the toys and never even looked back to say good-bye to me. When I came to pick him up he wouldn’t come to me and didn’t want to leave. I am glad he’s happy in the care of other people, but it kind of hurts a mommy’s feelings!
September 19th, 2006 at 2:19 pm
At his age, MisterE doesn’t have the capacity to control himself just yet, and it’s not a choice. I had to keep telling myself that when India was at that stage. She is juuuuust now getting to the point where I can ask her to behave a certain way, and IF she is well-rested and IF she is not hungry and IF it is not a month of the year with an R in it, maybe she can do it. But not always.