cranky pixels

Today I dropped off the paperwork for Ellison’s preschool. Paperwork, I’m telling you. It was somewhat unsurprising that I had to make an exhaustive list of the kid’s immunizations (which are thankfully up to date), but then there was this parental survey in which we were to wax lyrical about “things you appreciate about your child” and “what makes your child joyful?” Dude. When I was in school, no one gave a damn what made me joyful. (Hint: it was reading.) They just cared whether I showed up on time and sat quietly during class. This whole new-age preschool thing is nuts.

Even so, I can’t wait. Ellison is so excited he can barely stand it. I have a feeling preschool is one of the things that is going to fill my child with joy.

I keep finding myself trying to describe what it feels like to get depressed. Which is ridiculous, if you think about it, because it’s not like I sit around trying to find the words to explain not being depressed – and, let’s face it, if you look at the averages that’s how I spend most of my life. But the Prozac (you knew I’d talk about the Prozac again eventually, didn’t you?) has been working, so there has been much less of the doom and gloom and somewhat more of the hey, look at that, things don’t suck entirely! which is a very nice change and I hope it stays that way.

But.

So I just snarfed a huge piece of really gross cake and I feel elephantine and miserable and I really want to sit in a quiet room where I have no projects (over)due and no one is demanding that I console them while they pee on me,* for christ’s sake, and maybe, just MAYBE, I can sleep for more than two hours at a stretch, please, yes?

*The kid is having a slight potty-training relapse. I mention this in case you were entertaining notions of a more adult nature, which, ew.

If I could have given my new-parent self one piece of advice, it would be this:

Don’t worry about it.

Seriously. I started worrying pretty much the second I found out I was pregnant (am I gaining enough weight? What does that pain mean? Am I gaining too much weight? Is he going to be born with both legs fused together? Did all that kicking dislocate one of my ribs?) and it only ramped up from there.

First there was the milk situation, and the fact that mine took like 4 days to come in and the lactation people were making me feel really, really bad about it, like I was deliberately starving my baby or something (note to lactation consultants: I would tell you to suck it but you’d probably take it the wrong way).

Then there were the milestones that did not correspond with established charts: clapping (oh, how I worried about the clapping), jumping, talking.

We got walking out of the way relatively early, what with the taking his first steps at 8.5 months, but he didn’t really talk until well after he was 2 and still has some trouble with pronouns. And I think I may have mentioned how worried I was about potty training (but we all know how that turned out).

But for all my fretting and teeth-gnashing and late-night scouring of the internet, the kid did just fine. He reached all his milestones when he was ready to reach them, with relatively little input from me. It’s like – gasp! – I don’t have total and complete control over my child’s development! It’s like things happen when they happen no matter how much I worry about them!

He might not be reading super early like some of his friends, or drawing recognizable pictures like other friends, but I’m not going to worry about it. My kid is who he is, and I can’t imagine him any other way.

Except maybe he could eat more. That would be okay.

Now that I have a potty-trained kid, the world is suddenly opening up to me in the way of an oyster or something similar. Oh, the things I can do: at the store, for example, I can stride blithely past the diaper displays without obsessively checking to see if they have his size. I no longer have to worry that I’ve ventured out into the world without a diaper tucked into my purse (I ditched the diaper bag when he was about six months old so this is more of an issue than you’d think). And the best part?

I can now use the childcare center at IKEA.

(Honestly, it was the first thing that occurred to me when we realized he was potty trained. But I have yet to do it, since they’re remodeling. Remodeling! Damn them and their delicious meatballs!)

On a larger scale, we can actually actively consider sending the kid to preschool, the thought of which fills me with a giddy sort of glee. Not that I don’t enjoy spending every second of every day with a small child climbing on me and yanking or poking some portion of my anatomy, but since I’m usually trying very, very hard to get some work done during those seconds, I think the kid is often bored. I’m a firm believer in boredom as parenting device, mind you, but I also like the idea of the kid learning to play nicely with other children his own age and listen to authority figures who aren’t his parents. Plus he’s seriously awesome, and why would I want to keep that all to myself?

So, we’re looking. Preschool hasn’t even been on my radar, so I have no idea if other parents are reading this and laughing hysterically at the idea of me thinking I can just waltz in and enroll my kid all willy-nilly. Go ahead, laugh. I can’t hear you over the sound of my own denial.

I’ve been dreading potty training the kid, but it turns out I had nothing to worry about: he did it on his own.

Yes. You read that right. He potty trained himself.

About two weeks ago, Ellison announced that he wanted to use the potty. Nothing new; he’d been doing that periodically for months, but last time I hunkered down and tried to get him to use it reliably resulted in nothing but soiled underpants and tears. So, sure, he used the potty, and then I went to put his diaper on and he was like “No! No diaper!”

Okay. So I let him wear some big-boy underpants, thinking what the hell, we don’t have to be anywhere.

And he wore them all day. And didn’t have any accidents.

And then his diaper was dry in the morning. And he wore underpants all that day, too.

And then all of the next night.

And it’s been two weeks.

DUDE. If I had known potty training would be this easy I would never have stressed out about it. This parenting thing is a piece of cake.

My kid’s breath smells different when he’s sick. Not gross-different, but definitely different. My mom used to say that my breath smelled like rubbing alcohol when I was sick, and it’s kind of like that with Ellison too. It’s cool that the mom nose notices things like that, isn’t it? It’s like an early warning system.

I mention this because today Ellison’s breath smells like rubbing alcohol, and I foresee nothing but doooooom. (Though it does explain yesterday’s foray into Meltdown City, in which a sobbing tantrum was thrown every five minutes or so by my normally cheerful kid.) We all had the flu a couple of weeks ago & are only just now getting back to normal; the last thing I want is another illness! But the kid’s got a fantastic immune system and usually kicks whatever bug he gets pretty quickly. Mommy and daddy, though, are another story…

So I suddenly and unexpectedly found myself with the afternoon off. Hooray, I said (I’m pretty sure all-caps were employed as well), I totally needed an afternoon off, if by “off” you mean “doing laundry, replying to work emails, cleaning the house and dealing with a two and a half year old who refuses to eat.” Because, yes!

And the kid, he’s such the icing on the proverbial two year old cake. He wanted a granola bar. I suggested that mac and cheese might be more appropriate for lunch. He SCREAMED NONSTOP FOR 38 MINUTES. (Yes, I timed it.) Then took a break. Then saw me eating my mac and cheese and screamed some more. Then – finally – agreed to a pb&j…of which he consumed three bites. And then asked for a granola bar.

This is comedy gold, people.

I had grandiose dreams of taking the kid to the park, having one of those idyllic mom and baby experiences that one sees in magazines and commercials for Happy Meals, but now I’m exhausted, and cranky, and full of angst, and any park-going experience would resemble one of those other commercials, the ones involving Calgon and pleas to be taken away.

So instead I’m going to fold laundry and wish I had some vodka in the freezer while the kid (apparently) empties out every single bloody toy bin in the living room.

(Oh, what, you were expecting something funnier than this? Pfft.)