What a shitty day...

And that gives you all fair warning that this post contains explicit language and topics (namely, uncontrollable crying in front of kids and mean thoughts toward animals), and will curl your hair, so if you're not into that kind of thing, I'd leave the site now. I actually thought to myself yesterday, "I will never really be a writer because I hold too much back. I'm worried about what my family members will think of me, of my word choices, about my topics, when they read what I write." But I'm over it. I am holding nothing back this morning.

For those of you who are fearless, read on.

So yesterday started at 4 am, and I was pumped and ready to face the day knowing that history had changed course and I had a renewed sense of hope and faith in our country. I didn't realize that that hope and faith should not have been applied to my kids (#1 and #2), because they had apparently decided in their angelic, restful slumber to attempt to ruin me yesterday. They damn near succeeded.

Erin claimed at 7 am that she was sick. She had been sneezing and coughing the night before and I thought..."Aha!! The reason for her bitchy, nasty, horrible behavior yesterday! She's sick!" So here I am all happy and "OK, you can take it easy today."

Sucker!

She is not sick, even a little bit. Played me like the chump that I am. So now I had a not-sick, overly-rambunctious Erin home when she needed to be at school so someone would wear her ass out. And Meghan is off ALL WEEK LONG, so she's ready to lose her cotton-pickin' mind. The two of them were tearing around my house like caged animals on the heels of release, and would not listen or slow down for a moment. The baby got smushed into the rug or hardwood floor I don't know how many times, and then the smusher, which ever one of them it was, would yell at me that it wasn't their fault and I should not have put the baby there. Irrational, and rude, yes. But Pete was away, I knew it was going to be a long day because I had woken up at such a beastly hour, so I tried desperately NOT to lose my cool and just walked away from things that weren't that important. I kept the baby away from them as best I could.

But in the midst of this insanity, Elizabeth decided that there is not a toy in the house, no matter how magical and mystical its blinking lights and singing songs claim to be, that is more intriguing to her than the contents of my kitchen cabinets. Namely the cabinet that contains my cleaning products. I turn my back for a millisecond (literally, and yes, I know that's all it takes), and there she is sucking on a latex cleaning glove.

Oh. My. God.

I almost had to throw up a little.

I decided, "That's IT! I am installing those cabinets locks once and for all." This effort required the use of a drill. I can probably just stop this portion of the story there. Needless to say, the locks were not installed. And I'm happy to report that I stopped before I cracked the entire door front. I tried. And then...I stopped. And as I stopped I looked up to see my ten-month-old, turning my kitchen table chairs into walkers for herself, pushing them across the floor and padding along behind them. No ten-month-old should be able to do this. But here she is, Miss NICU-Premie herself, making a mockery out of any and all prediction that she would sustain developmental delays. She's moving furniture, for Christ's sake.

Then came dinner. I made mashed potatoes for them, a homemade butternut squash baby-food concoction for Liz (which, by the way, she hated. She ate a container of pre-fab Gerber instead. Clearly, a wasted effort), broccoli with light cheddar cheese and sauteed chicken. It doesn't get much healthier than that, particularly when you consider the fact that when Pete is away, I make a concerted effort NOT to cook more than is absolutely necessary. We usually have chicken fingers or grilled cheese. But I'm trying to revamp everyones diet, so I really went all out.

Those little beasts tortured me. Instead of eating, they went into a giggle-fit when Meghan decided that it would be more fun to infuriate me than to actually eat, and took a chicken tender, stuck into her mouth sideways and turned it into her smile. This sent Erin right over the edge into a fit of convulsionary laughter the likes of which I've never seen. And I know you are sitting there laughing your ass off right now at the thought of it. Well guess what? It's only that funny when it's happening at someone elses dinner table. I suddenly understood why my mother, on nights when my brother and I were behaving so badly at the dinner table, would simply pick up her plate, walk upstairs, and close her door. She had peace. She had quiet. She had all the reason in the world. Mom, I'm so sorry.

So I ignored them. I finished feeding Lizzy, then I gathered up their plates and cleared the table without a word. Thinking, in my typical Irish-Italian way, "You mess with the bull, you get the horns!" If they weren't going to eat, then dinner was over. They could go to bed hungry. Meghan proceeded to follow me into the kitchen, in her typical Irish-Italian-Lithuanian way, whining for dessert.

WHAT?????

I ignored her again and went about my clean-up. Apparently, she wanted to up the ante to get my attention, so she went into the playroom, got up on the little table we have in there, and started stomping on it as loud as she could and then jumped off with the loudest landing she could muster. I called Pete. I didn't know what to do. He was no help. (Sorry, babe, no offense.)

So I flipped. I picked her up and carried her upstairs to her room where I proceeded to freak out at my two oldest kids (because Erin followed me up to see what would happen)in a biblical way. I kept asking myself, silent-monologue-style, would anyone else have a different way to deal with this. Would this episode (which my words here do not do justice) have not turned Gandhi into a mass murderer? Of course it would have! I lit into them about wasting food, which is a waste of Daddy's hard-earned money. I let loose a litany about how hard I work every day to take care of them. Oh dear Lord, the Irish-Catholic guilt I laid upon them. And I thought of my best friend Erin's mom, who I love like my own, who has said, "Guilt is a good thing." Granted I've spent my adult like trying to get out from under the guilt of my forefathers (and mothers), but I now see that without it, children apparently do not develop a moral compass or remorse of their own. At least mine don't. So I laid it on.

I did not physically harm them. I can say that much. Emotionally, I didn't scar them for life. But I do hope that I got through to them. Erin snapped out of it and started acting like a trained Westminster show dog immediately. Which only pissed me off more because that tells me that she's capable of good, cooperative, complaint behavior. She just rations it out. After I started crying (yes, I broke down and bawled in front of my kids), I thought that Meghan started to get it. But then the little devil followed me back into the kitchen and yells, "AND YOU DIDN'T EVEN FEED ME DINNER!!!!!"

Oh. My. God.

"AND I WANT DESSERT!!!!!!!" she says.

Oh. My. God.

Then Erin chimes in with, "Where did you learn to cry?"

(Pause for laughter.)

Fast-forward to bedtime. I got them all to bed. That's all I can say about that. It was a minor miracle. I bathed all three of them in the same tub. I know, so gross, but it was the best I could do at that point. And I got all of them to bed. Then I realized that it was pouring and I had to take the dogs and the trash out. Meghan was back downstairs at 9:00 to tell me that she had the itchies. I did get a couple of extra minutes to just hug her on the couch and snuggle before I tucked her back in...and that was a nicer way to end the day. For both of us.

Then today began at 5:00 am with the clip-clop of untended dog toenails through my front hallway. This could only mean one thing...that goddamn dog (Carlos) needs to go out. I quickly grabbed a sweatshirt, ran downstairs to get him out and he stopped dead in his tracks. Wouldn't move another inch.

And that's when I saw it...

(Allow me to digress momentarily about my theory. Carlos, lately, has had a renewed spring in his step. Oh sure, he's still bouncing off the furniture like the Pinball Wizard, trying to navigate his way through the house, but he's been spry. This has happened before. Many, many times. The dog will not die. My theory is that he won't die because he has been put here to punish me. Does it get anymore narcissistic than that? A therapist would have a field day with me. He has been put here to make my life difficult and miserable when Pete travels, because I don't have enough to do. When Pete's here, he's fine. When Pete leaves, he turns on the works. Ok, back to the story.)

That goddamn dog left a huge pile of crap in the middle of the kitchen, right next to a sea of disgusting pee. That's why he wouldn't move another inch toward the door. He knew he'd step in it if he did, and also he knew it was dark, the blind bastard, and he also knew that I would step in it, at least the pee, because he deliberately peed right where the night light would not illuminate the puddle. So my day today began with a nice walk outside in more rain and gusting wind with this dog who will not die, and scrubbing and sanitizing my kitchen floors. Again.

It's only 6:30 and Meghan is already awake. And I've not veered off my diet in three full days (an accomplishment), but I love to eat when I'm stressed. It adds a whole new dynamic of guilt and low self-esteem to my day. I simply can't do it because I'm doing well and I don't want to blow my efforts with one bite of candy. Halloween candy. Snickers. And Twix. And anything and everything chocolate, sitting in bags on top of my fridge. Right there. An arm's reach away. No. No. NO. (Note to self: pitch all chocolate and leave only gross chewy candy for kids later today.)

(Did I mention that NO ONE HAS SCHOOL NOW UNTIL MONDAY???????????)

Thankfully, Pete will be home this afternoon and I am going to my girlfriend's house tonight for chit chat and a glass of wine. So I will set my sights on a better day. I don't know what I'm going to do with all of us today. The weather sucks, and I don't have money to schlep them to a play place. So it will just have to be a better day. Otherwise, my new friend, to whose house I'm going this evening, will have me walk into her home, to which I've never been before, uncork the wine and start an IV drip of the contents of the bottle right there in the middle of her kitchen.