girlfiend

Miss N is almost 3 months old. She is less of a squishy, lumpy, newborn and more of an actual baby these days. It is a little bit heartbreaking.

T is speaking more and more. I don’t believe his nutty speech therapist has anything to do with it. I think he’s just ready. He isn’t always clear and with new words it often takes a while to figure out what he’s saying, but he’s talking. Sentences even. He is hilarious and sweet and a holy terror these days. He is exhausting. Not too long ago he asked for a lollipop and I told him no. He pushed his chair over to the door by the basement stairs- we have a little pantry behind the door where I can lock the treats away. He couldn’t figure out the lock on the door and turned to his brother for help. He said, “F, help, please,” only it sounded more like “[F], ep, eese.” Because he had used words and asked so nicely I didn’t stop F from helping.

F is such a big kid now. He is tall and skinny and makes poop jokes that aren’t even slightly amusing. He is funny and charming and smart. He spent the better part of an hour writing the alphabet in the sand on our vacation. He can be sweet and polite without prompting, asking our friends how they have been and thanking me repeatedly for the watering can I bought him because he just really likes it. I want to say more nice things about him, but honestly, he is being a complete asshole today and I’m so blinded by rage that I can’t think of a single thing. But other people like him and have lovely things to say about him. Just not me right now.

A few weeks ago my mother emailed to tell me she was sending movers to my house to pick up my dining room furniture. The furniture was my grandmother’s and was at my mother’s shore house up until a few years ago when she decided the salt air was no good for it and she wanted to take my more casual dining room set and replace it with my grandmother’s. She spent who knows how much money for a guy to move the furniture to my house and swap it for mine. There was no fucking way I was going to let her take it back just because she was pissed off. Okay, that’s not entirely true. I would have said okay just because she is my mother and I don’t know how to respond to any of her insane shit, but B’s immediate “no” response snapped me out of my stupor. Rather than putting anything in writing I called her and told her no, I would be keeping the furniture. She told me we would discuss it further. I haven’t heard anything since. It is strange not talking to her, F tells me that he misses her. This is the week the movers are supposed to come. We changed the locks preemptively.

Aside from the crazy the summer has been relaxing and nice. Well, relaxing except for the children because children are anything but relaxing. We’ve gone to the beach and the mountains the art museum and playgrounds. We’re trying to cram in as much as we can before it’s over.

One last tidbit, just because.

One of my mother’s favorite things to do is to change the linens. Her house is never actually clean. (My house is never actually clean these days either, but my excuse is that I have three children, two cats and a man thwarting my efforts.) Her house always looks magazine ready, as things mean a great deal to her, but if this is any indication of her level of cleanliness, she only bought a broom, dustpan and brush after we bugged her about it. If you walk barefoot in her house, your feet will be black. She didn’t even have hand soap in her bathrooms until we complained about it. Anyway, she loves to make beds. She is good at it. They look beautiful.

When she told us where we were sleeping my mother told us the linens were freshly laundered. Iit never would have occurred to me to ask, but she seemed to take pleasure in saying the phrase freshly laundered that day. The bed, as always, was made, so even after changing the “freshly laundered” filthy crib sheet I didn’t think much of it. Later that night, after the hideous conversation with my mother and the subsequent loading of the car, Boyfiend got into bed and asked, “Why is there sand in the bed?” I didn’t know what he was talking about. “Put your hand here.” Sure enough, right in the middle of the bed, was a small pile of sand. In her freshly laundered linens.

Was it just another of her small, inconsequential lies? Or, like the missing clothes and the beach cart the workmen must have thrown away, was just a passive aggressive way to fuck with us?

Let’s recap:
1. pudge
2. beach cart thrown out by “workmen”
3. freshly laundered sheets, reminiscent of Thanksgiving floors
4. B’s clothes mysteriously disappeared

The next several hours were fairly uneventful. The beach was lovely, we got the kids showered and dressed, my mother made dinner, her bitey fucking dog snapped at T twice, and I put the kids to bed after she hopped them up on ice cream at 8.30. It was time to talk. Now the talk should have been something she was waiting for. When we spoke about the family going to see her, I asked if she planned to sit down and talk about the situation/disagreement/bullshit with B. She assured me that she had every intention of working it out with him. So when we stood in the kitchen, the three of us alone without children, and she started to ask us about our current television viewing habits, we just stared, answered lamely and waited for her to stop so we could move on.

After she finished recapping several seasons of Breaking Bad, she said that the new Sunday shows were starting and she was off to watch them. B stopped her and asked if she was ready to sit down to talk through some of the problems. She said, “Can it wait?” No. We sat around the kitchen table and B started the conversation. My mother seemed confident that there was nothing to work out. So confident she asked, “What do we have to talk about?” B reminded her that he called her two months ago to try to work things out and thought they’d come to some sort of agreement, but since she hadn’t spoken to him in two months it was clear that nothing had been resolved. She interrupted B and restarted the conversation.

According to my mother, the root of the problem is that she and B are like two ships passing in the night. They view the world through different prisms because of how their experiences differ. She is 67. He is not. They have different values. She doesn’t understand his values. He doesn’t understand hers. That doesn’t make them right or wrong, just different. This little monologue, in which she repeated the bit about prisms, and lenses, and values went on for several minutes. We didn’t interrupt, we just let her finish. Then told her that she wasn’t actually saying anything or addressing the issue. She said she didn’t know what the issue was.

(A few things I may not have written about. These are not the issues, but these are a few of the things she is furious about: 1. She claims that the cigarette smoke B smelled was not cigarette smoke, she just lit a book of matches to cover up a smell. This explanation came two weeks after the initial incident in which she denied smelling any smoke at all. 2. She wanted to take F to the museum by bus for a day trip. We said no. 3.She wanted her sister here the night we came home from the hospital. We said no. )

We reminded her of the issues and she continued to talk in circles about prisms and values for a while before she let loose. It became clear that she was angry because we’d said no to her. And when I say angry, I mean a crazy, ranting lunatic. She was banging on the table, shouting, calling us fucking crazy, telling B to shut the fuck up, and screaming, “I am your mother. Your mother. You do not say no to me because I am your mother,” spittle flying from her mouth. We tried to get away from the screaming and back to the conversation.

I was stunned. I knew she’d be angry but I wasn’t expecting her to verbally attack me. I wasn’t ready for the screaming and banging on the table. With some help from Boyfiend, here are some other highlights of the conversation:

Mother: Who cares if I took F home in a taxi without a car seat? It was raining. So what if I didn’t feed him or change his diaper? He’s fine. He just remembers that he had a good time?

Me:We are adults. We have children. We are allowed to say no to you. If we don’t want your sister here our first night home from the hospital we can say no.
Mother:NO, I am your mother. That is disrespectful.

Me: You are my mother. If something upsets me, if I don’t like something you do, you need to acknowledge it, apologize, something, because you are my mother.
Mother: I don’t have to acknowledge anything. I am your MOTHER.

Mother: You don’t care about my feelings. You only care about yourself.
Me: But mom, I called you. I apologized. I said I was sorry. You never called me back.
Mother: You don’t care about my feelings.

Mother: Our values are different.
Boyfiend: But you lied to me. You lied. You told me was no smoke. You were the adult in charge. I come home, there is smoke in the laundry room. I’m worried about that and you tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about. Two weeks later you said you lit a book of matches. You lied and never acknowledged your wrongdoing.
Mother: I didn’t lie. I explained.
Boyfiend: An explanation doesn’t mean that it’s not a lie. You explained why you lied.
Mother: I don’t have to apologize for anything. Why does everything have to be so black and white with you?

Mother: You don’t think I can do things by myself? I’m capable. I’m resourceful. I did all this by myself. I worked hard for everything I have.
Me: [silently, because I wanted to make things better, not worse] By yourself? You are still collecting alimony. My father gives you money for every gift you buy for me or the children on top of the alimony. Resourceful? You sell shit online. Capable? You switched schools every two years because you couldn’t maintain relationships to stay in the same place for any longer.

Me: Mom, I was home from the hospital with a new baby. I wanted help, not a fight.
Mother:It was my special weekend and Boyfiend ruined it for me.
Boyfiend: It wasn’t your special weekend. It was our baby. We wanted to be alone with the family for a quiet weekend. Just us and the kids. For things to return to normal as best as possible.  And honestly, after the mystery smoke in the laundry room the day before that you claimed you didn’t know anything about. That you said you couldn’t even notice.  Under the circumstances, I just wanted you to go.
Mother: Oh, you’re still hung up on that! It was my new grandchild and you ruined it for me.

Boyfiend: You’re ruining this for yourself. We’ve both reached out to you to try to fix this but you don’t respond.

Mother: I’ve racked my brain and I can’t think of a single thing that would please you. I just don’t know what to do.

Boyfiend: Here is what we need you to do. Recognize that you have done things that are not in the best interest of the children. Like riding in a cab with a baby. Acknowledge that we are their parents and respect what we think is in the best interest of the children. We can say no to you.

Mother: That’s bullshit. You’re both fucking crazy do you know that? You both fucking idiots! I don’t have to do anything (voice now rising to a fevered pitch) I am your mother! Do you hear me (both hands with palms rise above her head and come crashing down on the table.) Again she screams, I am your mother, wild rage in her eyes, spit flying with her words and her hands rise and slam down again on the table, I am your mother. You don’t say no to me! And she repeats this again and again, punctuating each sentence of her with a slam of the hands. I stare at her until Boyfiend turns to me and says, “You don’t need to listen to this any longer.”

Mother screams, “Let her decide when she’s done listening.”

Boyfiend apologizes and says to me, “Girlfiend, you can listen to this for as long as you want. I was merely suggesting that there are other options. Either way, I think we’re nearing the end here and we decide how things are going to work from now on. If you want to have a meaningful relationship with the boys you need to have a relationship with us. You need to do things differently.

Mother: I don’t want anything to do with either one of you.

The conversation, obviously, went badly. When she wasn’t bullshitting about how there is no problem, we’re just different, she was ranting and berating me. She said we were control freaks and wouldn’t be able to control everything forever. I told her it’s not about control, it’s about her respecting our wishes and not doing things with our children we don’t want her to do. I tried to get her to meet us halfway. We kept trying to get her back to the point, which was that she needs to respect us by apologizing or acknowledging her mistakes. She refused because she is my mother and we have to think about her feelings. I can’t say no because she is my mother. We left it with her saying that she wasn’t willing to bend, to change, or to apologize. She has no interest in repairing our relationship, she just wants to see the kids, not us.

Boyfiend wanted to pack up and leave right away. I decided to wait until morning. The night wasn’t easy. B started loading the car. I got into bed. The baby woke up once to eat and not long after I fell back to sleep T fell out of bed and got trapped underneath it trying to get his sippy cup. It took over an hour to get him back to sleep and I fell asleep in the twin bed with him.

When the boys got up I made the beds and packed our bags. We had tentative plans to see a family friend who was at her parent’s house on the bay with her children. The Fiendling was looking forward to seeing them and playing at their house. My mother told B the plan was off. I called to follow up, and sure enough, my mother just made that decision to punish us. My mother wanted to speak to me alone. I told her no, and we got into the car and left. We stopped for breakfast then went to our friend’s house for the morning before we drove back to the city. The Fiendling was sad about leaving and told us so, quietly. He wasn’t hysterical or tantrumming, just sad. He cried a little, softly, which was only evident from his tear-stained face. I felt terrible, but there was nothing else to do but leave.

So that’s that. She’s already told her sister that we’ve forbidden her from seeing the children, but that’s just untrue. She lies, and that lie was created both to make us look bad and to excuse her from trying to get along with us. She says we are hurting the children but she is just hurting herself.

This is long, and I need to spend some time with the second part before I post it. So here is the beginning.

Boyfiend and I were dreading the visit. We were both on edge the entire ride, wondering just how bad it could be. I know my mother is crazy. I expect very little from her. B has just begun to realize that when I say crazy I actually mean crazy. Not eccentric, not odd, not funny, just plain crazy. He wanted an apology, or at least some acknowledgment of wrongdoing. I wanted her to try to let go of some of her rage so I wouldn’t have all of the stress hanging over my head every time we see her. I know she’ll never be helpful. I know she’ll never really be capable of caring for my children for an extended period of time. I know that it’s bad that Boyfiend is currently on her shit list as she is a grudge holder (she hasn’t seen or spoken to her brother in 16 years) and she is convinced that she is always the victim. The visit went about as well as I expected. Let’s start with the petty.

First, my aunt was there. She is just as bad as my mother. I never quite understood why my cousin, M, stopped attending family gatherings for holidays and birthdays. Now I get it. Anyway, we got out of the car and walked up to the porch. My aunt stood up, gave me a kiss and a half hug, squeezed my upper arm and said, “Pudge.” Seriously? Fuck you.

We went in, my mother immediately showed the boys the toys she gave them then took away, so we brought our stuff to the bedrooms and made uncomfortable small talk. B installed a window AC in the bedroom we were to sleep in and moved the mini crib into the room. My mother told me the sheets on the crib were freshly laundered. By freshly laundered she meant covered in dirt, hair, and crumbs. I took off the sheet and replaced it with another, and said nothing about it.

B went out to the shed to get our beach stuff together and couldn’t find our beach cart. Our beach cart was a homemade contraption, made from PVC pipes, Wheeleez, and a Rubbermaid storage bin. Boyfiend located the storage bin with her trash cans holding a bag of trash. The rest of the cart was nowhere to be found. When pressed, my mother claimed she didn’t know anything about it. The workmen were in the shed. Perhaps the workmen threw it out. Yes, the workmen.

I didn’t pack much for Boyfiend other than underwear since he’d left a bunch of clothes behind when we last visited. His clothes were not in the drawer. My clothes were in the drawer, the kids’ clothes were in the drawer, but B’s? My mother wasn’t sure, but she thought that perhaps they’d turn up somewhere. He grabbed a bathing suit he keeps in the car and we got dressed, fed the kids, and walked to the beach. Yes, he keeps a bathing suit in the car. Clearly it comes in handy sometimes.

We are going to see my mother for the first time this summer. She hasn’t seen us since May. As much as she wanted a granddaughter, she’s been too selfish and angry to suck it up, talk to us, and actually see her. The latest conversation, three long weeks after she didn’t accept my apology for her taking the toys back and didn’t respond to my email about how we needed to work out our differences, was all about how self-absorbed my husband is. Boyfiend, who for the past 5 years has brought his toolbox to her house every time we’ve gone, just in case she needs him to fix something or install one of her thousands of internet purchases.

I am on edge, wondering how this is going to go. Will she be genuinely happy to see us, which seems unlikely, or will she act happy, silently seething with rage?

We’re staying overnight and coming home tomorrow. Wish us luck.

My baby boy has decided to potty train himself. I adore him. As long as he is not wearing pants he goes to the bathroom, pees in the potty then empties it into the toilet and flushes. The emptying part I could live without, considering he splashes urine all over the toilet and floor, but I am still thrilled. The problem is that he can not be without pants at all times and he is happy to use his diaper the rest of the time. I am not sure how to transition to full time potty use with pants on. The other issue is that he is too short to pee in a real toilet standing up and has no desire to pee sitting down. But these problems are minor. He just turned two last month and I am overjoyed that he is peeing in the potty at all. Two kids in cloth diapers is a lot of laundry.

My mother, who I have only seen once since she left the weekend after Miss N’s birth, is still crazy. She sent the boys toys which I wanted to save for later since we are currently at capacity after T’s birthday and N’s birth (for which the boys received big brother gifts from my mother) last month. She was angry that I didn’t give the boys the gifts right away and sent my father over to pick them up RIGHT AWAY. I lied and told him over the phone that I’d felt badly and given the boys the gifts and they were playing with them. HE told me she didn’t care and that he was supposed to get them immediately then call her as soon as he had them in his possession. Fucked up, right? He picked them up and I called my mother who did not answer and left a message of apology. I did not wish to apologize, but B and I figured it was the best approach. She did not return the call or acknowledge the apology. Today, 3 days later I received an email:

Dear Girlfiend:

I have decided not to rent my apt. Instead, i will move back in at the end of September. I will be able to help out with the children several days a week and give you a chance to get out and do your errands, etc.

I look forward to your reply to this as soon as possible.

Love,

Mom

What the hell am I supposed to do with this?

T is currently covering himself in aloe gel. I will have to cut this post short.

I have mastitis again. AGAIN. I had it once on my right breast when Miss N was just a few days old. After a two week run of antibiotics I got it again, on the left side. Now, while I’m still taking the antibiotics from the second round I have it again on the right. WTF?

My OB, who I’m losing patience with, made me come in so she could feel my breasts and tell me yes, I have mastitis again and give me the same freaking antibiotic. I have to get a breast ultrasound to make sure there’s not an abscess at a different testing center in the hospital. She could have just given me the prescription for the ultrasound and not made me scramble to find last minute babysitting to come in so she could confirm that I have mastitis again. I told her I didn’t want to come in because I am now an expert at self diagnosing mastitis, but she made me come in anyway so I had to kill my morning waiting in her office with a baby who would have preferred to be sleeping at home.

And now I have to go back to the hospital Friday for the ultrasound and divide my children among two babysitters because I don’t want to have to leave anyone with all three. Such a pain in the ass. And I’m pretty sure that I don’t have an abscess, I just have bad luck right now and maybe if she’d switch the antibiotics it would stop, because, really, if the first four weeks of antibiotics didn’t work why am I on the same one for another two weeks? But I am not the medical professional. I am just the one with the sore boobs.

Other than that, I am fine. A little over a week before B is done school for the summer and I can get a break. And I bought $40 soap. It better be worth every penny.

I made a stir fry for dinner. Bok choy, green onions, sugar snap peas, carrots and steak over rice. F ate two bowls of the veggies and three servings of rice (separately, of course) and T ate three servings of rice and possibly a vegetable and maybe even a bite of steak. Either way I count it as a success.

Little Miss N is four weeks old today. She is suddenly huge. I had to pack away all of the newborn size clothes that she’s outgrown. She has even grown out of the newborn diapers- I had to switch from orange edge to yellow. She’s waking up some and holds up her head and looks around. I hung a few toys from the play mat today and for a moment, after looking through the rest of the box, I wondered if I should get some new baby toys for her to play with. Then I remembered that she is a baby and will most likely shun 90% of age appropriate toys in favor of choking hazards and my cell phone.

I failed my middle child in two ways today:

1. He wanted to use the potty after his bath while I was giving Miss N her bath. He took the potty seat and tried to put it on the toilet but got it backwards. F fixed it for him, but T needed help getting up to sit. By the time I was able to get to him, at least a minute or two after he told me he wanted the potty, he was peeing on the floor next to the toilet.

2. A few minutes later I was getting Miss N into her pajamas. T followed me in the room and sat on the glider/recliner which was in the reclined position. Somehow he managed to get his leg stuck in the chair’s footrest. Really stuck. I tried to get it out, but couldn’t- I’d already broken one child’s leg and was afraid I’d break his too. I had to call for B to come up and get him unstuck. Nothing was broken, but there is a nasty bruise on both the front and back of his leg.

It’s getting easier. I wouldn’t call it easy, but I’m managing. I keep forcing myself to get out of the house and take the boys places so I can prove that I can do it. Not just the easy places like the library or the playground, but hard places like when I took all three out to get the boys haircuts and when we went to the Please Touch Museum and to the zoo. It’s hard, but it’s not as bad as I’d anticipated. The transition from two children to three isn’t nearly as difficult as the transition from one to two. I wouldn’t recommend having three kids so close in age, ages four, two and zero as F likes to tell people, but it’s okay.

When I ask my mother to help I expect very little from her. She has let me down so many times in the past that my expectations get exponentially lower each time she helps. I expect that my children will be hungry, cranky, and dirty upon my return. I expect that they will eat crap if they eat at all, and that a child in diapers will not be changed until the urine soaks through his pants. I expect that the children will go to sleep well past their bedtime and that my mother will not have the energy to do anything but put them in front of the TV. But still, somewhere deep inside I hope that maybe one of these days she’ll learn how to be a grandmother, not a playmate. That if she’s given specific instructions she will follow them, not ignore them.

When I last spoke to my mother she had several concerns about the way she was treated during her stay here a few weeks ago. She felt that she was treated like a babysitter and a maid. She was upset that I did not have dinner waiting for her when she arrived. She was upset that there was no food in the house to eat. She was upset that no one made her meals and that we wanted her to clean up after herself. She was annoyed that B’s sister was spying on her and brought dinner over one of the nights that she stayed. She also expressed anger that B told her no when she asked if her sister could come over. She felt that she’d been shit on.

First I’ll address the food. We have more food in our house right now than my mother has probably had in her house over the course of the last year. In my downstairs freezer alone I have at least 2 weeks of homemade meals frozen and a week’s worth of meals from Trader Joe’s. We are low on cereal, which means we only have 10 unopened boxes in the basement in addition to the 3 open boxes in the kitchen. There is no shortage of food here. We have bread, meat, fruit, vegetables, rice, pasta, and snack food. There are ingredients to make just about any type of baked good or ethnic meal. The night before we left, with my help she made a list of foods that the boys would eat during her stay. The list consisted of breakfast, lunch and dinner ideas as well as snacks and treats. All of the food on the list was in the house. Very little of the food on the list was actually consumed by the boys in my absence. I suppose that since she didn’t actually feed it to the children it did not occur to her to eat anything on her list. She was probably offended that we did not provide her with Fiddle Faddle or Pepsi. She did have coke and she did finish a box of ice cream sandwiches. Upon our return she was eating a bag of goldfish that she’d swiped from the diaper bag. I later picked up the empty bag from the floor and threw it away.

Her sister was welcomed into our home the day after we got home from the hospital, not the day of our return. B, that asshole, wanted our first night home to be low key.

B’s sister brought dinner (to be helpful) after she was told that the previous evening my mother failed to provide dinner for the boys and B was forced to feed them in the hospital cafeteria. Before leaving the hospital a few hours after Miss N’s birth, B called home and let my mother know that he was coming to get them and could she please feed the children first. After some discussion he told her to order a pizza. When he got home my mother was asleep on the couch, T was upstairs crying in his crib and no pizza had been ordered. The following night B’s sister brought dinner to insult, rather than help, my mother.

For the record, when we asked her to stay here it was to provide two main services. The primary service was to watch the boys while I was in the hospital pushing a baby out of my vagina and recovering. The secondary service was to try and keep the house in order for the two nights I was gone. In other words, we asked invited her into our home to act as a babysitter and maid. In other, other words, we asked her to be a grandmother for two nights.

I will get into the rest another time. The part with the lies and the smoking in the house and her thinly veiled rage. It’s all infuriating. But this, the part where she can’t look outside of herself for one minute, the part where she’s angry with us for not waiting on her when we were so clearly unable to, is it for me. I was in the hospital pushing out a baby. I was not out frolicking in the Caribbean or backpacking through Europe. I wasn’t out banging hookers and snorting cocaine. I was in the hospital with a newborn and a stitch where I tore pushing her out. We asked my mother to watch the boys. She was upset that she was not treated like a guest. I just had a baby, my third in four years. I needed help- help with the baby, help with the housework, help with the boys- not a fight. I’m done. I’m sure I will talk to her and see her on occasion. I have no plans to shut her out entirely since she is my mother and I have some bizarre loyalty to her. But I’m done. We’re better off without her.

Today I took all three kids to the Please Touch Museum. My original plan was to take them to the zoo, but when I heard on the drive over that the forecast called for early afternoon thunderstorms I decided I’d rather be stuck in the germ factory than outside in the sticky heat and rain.

The Fiendling only ran off once and did not have a single tantrum. T only had a tantrum when I had to drag him bodily off of the carousel after unclenching his fingers from horse’s pole. The new baby, Miss N, spent most of the trip eating or sleeping. I did not have a single tantrum, scream, or handle any of the children roughly. We made it home in one piece and I feel like I deserve a medal and/or a giant cocktail. I made myself a strawberry milkshake, but it would have been better with booze.