Stepping Out & Falling Flat on My Face

The weather is beautiful. Warm finally instead of snappy Spring cold. Sick and tired of being trapped in the house, with a toddler who felt similarly, I decided an outing was in order.

The pain has improved. I'm so happy to not be French kissing the toilet any more that I feel pretty good. Falsely so as it turns out.

First we went to Borders and bought a bunch of books for the toddler as well as a birthday gift for someone else. The toddler was age appropriate in her behavior--distract-able, mostly not listening, but responsive to coaxing and some bribery.

That ended when we went to the mall.

I explained the agenda to her, store, train ride, potty, home.

She repeated it back to me.

I thought we were good.

We were not.

She began channeling Linda Blair the second we set foot in the mall.

Coaxing didn't work.

Bribing didn't work.

Things deteriorated into momma (that would be me) saying things like "You can walk or I'll help you walk, those are your choices."

Of course the toddler choose being 'walked' by momma, which involves me holding her arms and hustling her along. She thought it was great fun and laughed the whole time.

I did carry her for as long as I could at one point, but am not strong enough still to manage 500+ yards with her in my arms. A key point to keep in mind any time I start feeling ambitious in the future.

Then she started screaming 'ow' and favoring her arm. I stopped, I looked her over, couldn't find a problem and decided whatever it was we would deal with it later. I hadn't touched her arm other than the 'walking', which had occurred 5 minutes previously with no comment. But she's not a faker that I've ever seen so something must be wrong.

The parking lot was a similar exercise in parental misery. Proving that no matter how old I get, I will never have enough wisdom to where a mere 2-year-old can't run circles around me.

We did the awkward hold-my-hand-damn-it-and-stop-practicing-passive-resistance-as-if-MLK-is-watching dance, which resulted in skinned knees when the toddler went limp. So the toddler was crying. I couldn't carry her. People were staring. I felt like crawling into a hole alternated with the urge to shout 'I am not a bad mom, she's a bad toddler.' Which would be immature so I didn't do it, but it was tempting.

Spanking was starting to sound like a Great Idea. See also, when selling one's children on Ebay sounds Real Good. And also, Where's Mary Poppins when you need her, the flaky bitch?

I have never been so happy to be home in my life. The toddler's arm is fine, thankfully--I don't know what that was about. The knees, well, she got some boo-boo kisses and a looooong talk about how if we cooperate and hold hands, we don't fall and hurt our knees. Non-violent protest is not all it's cracked up to be.

Further, she was informed, we will not be going anywhere any time soon. At least not until I can cover 1/8th of a mile while carrying her. Or she turns 35. Whichever comes first.

Before running the parental gauntlet, I felt pretty good and was optimistic that I was going to be fine. After, I'm beyond wiped and am clearly not 100%. So we are back to where sitting on my ass is easy and makes Doing Things sound good, when I'm really in no position to do anything other than imitate a couch potato.