Last night, the little angel realized her own strength.  I knew she was strong - she sometimes flails on the changing table and kicks me in the stomach hard enough to make me wheeze - but I don't think she knew she was strong. Now she does.

We have these fake-suede throw pillows on our couch from Costco (God bless you, Costco, maker of cute, fake, cheap things that still sort of look nice).  They are pretty heavy for pillows.  We usually throw them down on the floor when the little angel is scaling her anywhere chair so she does not split open her melon on the hardwood floor if she happens to miss the rug. 

Last night, she started picking up the pillows and hoisting them around like she was a member of a construction crew, making little grunting noises and sweating.  I could almost see her chewing tobacco while she was doing it.  I thought she would stop after a stack or two, but she just kept rearranging them, grunting, sweating, thumping those pillows around for at least ten minutes, apparently delighted with her own brute strength.  Aha!  I control the world!

When she was finished, she was so exhausted she threw up.  Not a lot, just a little. I wonder what she will do after they make her run a mile in the Presidential Fitness Test?

From time to time, especially when things are going along just fine, I fall into these slumps. I am in one now.  When the slump comes, it sort of lays on top of me and pushes its elbows into my ribcage, not enough to hurt, but enough to just be generally annoying at all times.

There's no real good reason for the slump. I don't know, maybe it's chemical.  I've been feeling extremely tired all the time lately.  Maybe I'm anemic. I doubt it, though.  I've never really been anemic, although I've claimed to be it many times.

When I took the little angel to the Emerald City this morning, her little friend S's mother informed me that S. had roseola over the weekend. I could still see hints of the rash on her legs.  I sure hope the little angel doesn't get roseola. That would not help my slump.

I think I need a sick day. I miss those.  Now I work from home, though, which makes taking sick days hard.  I mean, I could just sit and bed and work, right?  My family was in town over the weekend, and we had a lovely time.  Absolutely no good reason for this.  Get off my back, slump.  It's sunny outside, and it's a short week, and man, do I wish I were happy.

I think I've said before that I now work primarily from home.  However, we've been working on this software application for Large Corporate Telecom, so I've been obliged to haul myself down to the 'burbs almost every day to meet with people.  Sometimes (and this is fun), I have to get gussied up and haul myself down there just so that I can get into a NetMeeting from behind their firewall (yes, you got that - I have to get dressed and drive 45 minutes round trip so that I can sit in a conference room with no one else and dial in to a virtual meeting).  Don't you love how technology improves your life?

The other day, I got dressed in my skirt and top, but I didn't feel like traipsing around my house for three hours in a pair of LCT-appropriate heels.  So I put on my flip-flops ( I used to call them "thongs" until I was informed that we can no longer refer to them that way - pop culture has retired the word "thong" from polite society, just as it crucified the "happy" version of "gay."  Hmph.)

As I was driving to LCT, I looked down.  Yup, still sporting flip flops.  Black with little bead flowers.  They really didn't look that bad - the skirt was the springy sort that could probably pull it off - but it was the SOUND that they made.  I was mortified. 

I walked across the parking lot, followed by a woman in Manolos.  Thwok, thwok.

I entered the marble-laded lobby. Thwok, thwok.

I walked down the hall to my conference room. A long haul.  thwokthwokthwokthwokthwokthwokthwok

I was happy that it was a NetMeeting that time.

Thwok.

The other day my beloved went to pick up the little angel from the Emerald City.  All the kiddos were asleep.  When he asked why they were sleeping so late, he was told that none of them had taken their afternoon naps.  I can just hear them now:

Little Angel:  "My parents hate it when I'm still sleeping at 5:25."

D:  "Yes, mine, too."

J:  "I know the sign for 'bear.'"

S:  "Sometimes when my parents aren't looking, I fall just to get their attention."

S2:  "I fall even when they are looking. It makes them feel worse."

Little Angel:  "It would be fun to all skip our naps."

J:  "But that would make them mad."

Little Angel:  "Exactly.  That's the fun part. They really can't do anything. They can't make us sleep.  I know:  the kitty peed on Mama and Daddy's bed the other day.  They couldn't stop her because they were changing my diaper.  They really don't have control."

S2:  "Really?  My parents always tell me they're in charge."

Little Angel:  "They're not.  Sybil told me so."

J:  "I'm scared."

D:  "I think it sounds fun. Let's do it."

J:  "I know the sign for 'bear.'"

So they held out as long as they could. Finally, in desperation, the daycare people put them in the buggy and took them for a walk. The motion was too much for them and they all conked out on the buggy ride.  Thus, they were sleeping when my beloved showed up.

This is how things get accomplished in the child world.

Yesterday we had the house fogged for spiders and other icky bugs.  Since the beginning of spring, I have probably been killing an average of three spiders a day.  I can just hear some of you sighing that I would not let Charlotte live - I KNOW most spiders don't bite. I KNOW they are good friends that eat the nasty flies.  I DON'T CARE!  I HATE spiders.  So I called the Death Star - Gunter Pest Control.

Part of the Death Star treatment involves some pretty severe fogging.  So severe, in fact, that your beloved pets must be removed from the house for at least four hours.  So, I took Sybil, our 16-year-old cat, to the vet for the day. 

I was sort of surprised she didn't meow plantively like she usually does on the way there. I explained that she was just going to hang out because of the fogging.  She pointed out that she had four legs, not eight, so it shouldn't affect her.  I told her she could suffer from fog inhalation.  She said she thought she could probably hide in the chair and be okay.  I told her she was going to the vet because I am the mama and she is the cat.  She didn't speak to me for the rest of the ride there or the entire ride home.  She even turned her furry back to me in the car.

We should've known she was plotting.  When we arrived home, I realized she had no food, so like the dutiful pet owner I am, I drove to the pet store and bought two bags of the very expensive "senior diet hairball formula" food that she must have at her advanced age.  Total for two small bags:  $17.17.

When I arrived home, my beloved was upstairs changing the little angel's diaper.  Suddenly I heard him screaming, "Help!  Help!"  He only screams like a little girl when afflicted with something too gross to deal with on his own.  I felt my stomach curdle a little.  The cat strolled by, grinning.

I ran upstairs to find Sybil had jumped on the bed, peed as though she'd been holding it all day, and hopped back down gracefully.  It had soaked through the duvet cover, the feather comforter, the sheets and the featherbed. Thank God we have enough feather crap on our bed to stop cat pee from making contact with the mattress. 

As I hauled all these feather items to the dry cleaner (where of course they told me that cat urine is sort of like Agent Orange in that it can never fully be removed), I thought about how much I would've like to kick some furry ass after that one.  We JUST let Sybil back onto the bed, after over a year of floor confinement, about three months ago.  She liked to pee everywhere when she found out I was pregnant.  But she'd been so good!  I thought she was cured!

Late last night, as we locked her out from the upstairs with the handy baby/cat gate, she did look contrite.  She meowed low and brushed against the gate.  She pleaded for mercy.  I told her that I loved her, but she was being punished.  It was a good test, I think, for when I find the pot in the little angel's backpack and she still wants to go to the prom.

We took the little angel to the zoo for the first time this past weekend.  She was excited enough about getting to ride in the jogging stroller WITH snacks.  Then she saw the animals.

For the first half hour or so, she just stared, transfixed, at whatever was in front of her.  For a normally talkative girl, her silence sort of befuddled me.  I've never seen her too surprised to speak before.

The best part was when we got to the elephant.  It raised its trunk to tear some leaves off a tree (did you know elephants ate trees?  I did not know this) and it made that elephant noise - is it trumpeting?  Anyway, the little angel looked at me, eyes like saucers, then pointed to the elephant's trunk, as if to say "Are you SEEING this shit?" 

I looked at the elephant again.  His baggy skin.  His soulful, Willie Nelson eyes.  His hairy little head.  His long, wispy tail.  His very obvious toenails.  I guess I sort of accepted that elephants are the way they are, but upon second glance, they really are goofy-looking.  Maybe she has a point.

The little angel has grown a new personality.  I'm not sure if it is caused by a growth phase or her combination ear infection/sore mouth.  She now cries "Mama, mama," and clambors onto my lap at every possible moment.  She also will dramatically place her forehead on the floor in a praying-to-Mecca pose if I do not immediately pick her up and tell her she is, of course, the most beautiful little angel in the whole word, kiss, kiss.

On Saturday, twenty minutes before guests were due to arrive, the little angel was playing next to a wooden bench in our foyer.  I was watching her, then (just like the stories go - cue Fatal Attraction music), I turned my back to put away some of her toys. 

Thump.  SCREAM!  Blood.  Lots of blood.  I scooped her up and carried her squalling self over to the sink to rinse her now-bleeding lip.  Apparently she either thumped her mouth on the bench or just thumped her chin, thus causing her very pointy teeth to go through her lip.  All I know is that it was the first major blood I've seen, and blood is a scary thing.  She also bled on my new J.Jill tank top, something I tried hard, as a good mother, to overlook, but couldn't completely.

My beloved made fun of me.  "I don't know," he said, as I frantically dialed Ask a Nurse.  "Maybe we should call an ambulance." 

Of course Ask a Nurse, as they are wont to do due to our society's obsession with litigation, overhyped my worry like a Fox season finale trailer.  "Is it gaping?" the woman asked.  "She might need stitches." By this time the little angel was distracted by a stuffed duck.  She held her bloody arms out to it and laughed.  "Um, no," I said. "Not so much gaping."

"Is the wound more than one-fourth inch long?"

I peered at her mouth.  Her entire lip is not that long.  "Um, no," I said.  "I actually think she's okay."

"You need to wash that out right away," she said.  "She might get an infection."

I debated whether to tell her the little angel has been freebasing Augmentin since February.  "I think she's pretty good in the antibiotic department," I said. 

"You should wash the area of dirt and debris." 

Dirt and debris?  "The cleaning people just came on Thursday," I stammered, not sure what assumptions this woman was making about my housekeeping skills.

"OH," she said.  "I thought she fell outside."

Aha!  See where assumptions get you?

So we changed her clothes and mine and got ready for the party.  Now, a day later, the little angel looks sort of like Pamela Anderson after her latest round with the Collagen Fairy.  But it seems to be healing fairly well.  Her wound did not stop her from doing any of the following:  Sucking on a washcloth during her bath, insisting on a paci all day (we gave in, figuring she was in pain), ingesting an entire carton of yogurt plus 10 green beans, two chicken nuggets, a mini pita and countless appetizer Cheerios at dinner (this is way more than normal for her) or stage-diving off her PBK anywhere chair before bed. 

She also learned to say "book" this weekend, a fact that endears her even more to my own heart.  She loves her books so much that she will sneak over to the corner where the non-board, "good" variety live in an attempt to stare lovingly at their pages and rip the covers to shreds in the process.

I guess she will live.  Man, though, that blood thing sucks.

She's getting her ear tubes at the end of June.  Lord help her not get ANOTHER ear infection before then!

Notes to my daughter:

Your tiny fingers cling to my arms.
You try to crawl inside my skin,
wanting again
earthly fusion with me,
stunned that you are now free.

Your fever spikes every hour or two,
heat emits from your inner core,
your body’s small war.
Red hair cemented to creamy skin
frames lacy blue veins in your eyelids.

Newspaper horror doesn't compare
to a small child slumped and lethargic,
my thoughts’ only target.
I'm shocked with my anger’s capacity
when faced with the weakness of me.

The night passes slower than adolescence,
my thoughts paralyzing
upon realizing
that I can do nothing but lie here.
I am a paper tiger.

Dear Judgmental Pediatrician,

There's a reason I switched to your sweet-natured colleague.  It has something to do with the fact that every time I've visited you, when I'm already drowning in oh-my-gosh-what-is-wrong-with-my-baby-now, you've pointed out that you just could NOT send your children to daycare, that they MUST have a nanny while you spend your twelve-hour days serving the better good and earning fat cash doing it.  It might also have something to do with the fact you point out my child IS in a church daycare fraternizing with germ-monkeys five days a week every time I see you.

There is something else that bothered me even more about you.  The breastfeeding comments.  I know, I know, I KNOW I should've breastfed longer than seven weeks.  I read all the books. I would have flagellated over it, but you know what?  Breastfeeding hurt about as much as whipping myself with knotted leather, so I kind of felt like I'd already done my time.  Finally?  I had ear infections as a kid, so wouldn't she have also maybe have inherited the shape of my ears, which is really the major cause of the ear infection anyway?  Is it conceivable that even had I breastfed her until she was 25 and never left my home, that that in and of itself might not have been a perfect solution, either?

When I visit you, Oh Wise One, I don't want you to tell me what I've done wrong. I want you to give me sound advice about how I might best address the situation at hand, not the sins of the past.  I'd like you to recognize that I'll be working until late at night in order to drop everything, fetch my child and drive all the way through the damn Plaza in order to spend 45 minutes waiting to get this earful, since you are running so far behind.  It's okay for you to run behind, because as you've told me six times, you have a nanny.  She won't fine you $20 for every ten minutes after six that you show up, will she?  No.  Because you take out her taxes.

Your colleague never does this.  Your colleague looks at me sympathetically and puts her hand on my arm. "Oh," she says.  "I'm so sorry you guys have to go through another ear infection.  We'll make it all better."

Why do you not realize, Dr. B., that the pediatrician is teaching the new parent how to react to illness as much as she is treating the child?  Why can't you instill confidence in me and my skills as a mother instead of hacking away at my fragile Mama Ego?

And so, screw you, Judgemental Pediatrican.  Screw you and your Scooby-Doo stethoscope carrying case.  My daughter never liked you anyway.

Sincerely,

Desperate, Non-Earth Working Mother