Little Me

Yeah, that's me. Those were the days. I still looked good in bangs.

And you know what? My parents are always talking about what a hellion I was, the worst ever, was so wild I make my daughter look like Pollyanna but I have to say, I look pretty sweet and docile in this picture. I am, for instance, still enough that the picture is not blurry. This is a nearly unheard-of feat when it comes to Seconda. She is one bad-ass lady. Consider this:

The Losing of the Nap

First off, let me be clear that this is not a picture of my child sleeping. If you knew me at all, you'd have guessed that for two reasons.

A. When my child does nap, I do not sneak in to snap photos of her sleeping. I do not crack the door for any reason whatsoever. I leave the child alone and I try to breathe as quietly as possible in the adjoining room.

B. My kid doesn't nap anymore.

Yes, readers, I am in the tumultuous terrain of the terrible twos, known far and wide (in my apartment) as The Losing of the Nap.

Before you stop me and say, “Whoa now, my kid didn’t drop her nap ‘til she was 4 or 5,” or better yet, “We’re European and my kid is 12 and still naps!” let me rush to qualify that I understand not all children lose the nap as part of the terrible twos. It’s just the particularly ornery ones that do, the ones that you need to sleep more than anything in the world, because it is those two hours of peace that allow you to grab onto the frazzled end of your sanity and make it through the rest of the day. These ornery, defiant, devil-may-care children are precisely the ones that have the nerve to drop their nap well before they no longer need the sleep, creating a total friggin’ mess in the process.

It goes like this:

Between 50-75% of the time, Seconda does not nap, even when I put her to sleep at the appointed time in the appointed place. She just stands in her crib tent, which is zipped tight, and yells or throws things or cries or sings loudly for an hour or two. I get no rest during that time since I am too busy sustaining a coronary. Then I finally let her out of imprisonment, for which she is very grateful and sweet, for exactly 20 seconds,

The moment her feet hit the floor, and freedom is assured, she begins to act like a total, unmitigated little shithead. This may sound mean. In fact, strike that. It does sound mean. It sounds terrible. But what you should take into account is that I am actually being generous because saying she’s a shithead is a tremendous understatement.

My mommy friend, Grace, who has two kids just the same age and Primo and Seconda came over for a playdate yesterday. Sec had opted out of the nap and when Grace and the kids arrived at 4pm, she was not just a hot mess but an atomic mess. While the other children played, she spent about an hour screaming, for a reason no one could understand.

Grace looked pained. She looked CONCERNED. While I ignored my own child’s screaming, she tried to fix whatever was wrong.

“Do you want some water?” Grace asked Seconda.

Screaming.

“Do you want a snack?"

Screaming.

“Do you want to play with the pirate hat?”

Screaming.

My well-intentioned friend, of course, got nowhere/ She could not fix what was wrong because what was wrong was that my daughter didn’t get the rest she needs to maintain her mental health. Her exhaustion makes her a crazy person. And not just her, either.

It’s like my toddler has colic. Can you begin to understand the implications of that? A baby who has colic can, ultimately, be put down for a few minutes and left to cry so that you can take a swig of whisky or whatever you need to do to get back on board. A toddler just follows you around screaming. Toddlers weigh a lot more than newborns and carrying them everywhere will give you a hernia. Toddlers, unlike newborns, will purposefully hit you in the eye and bite you on your arm. Toddlers should never get colic. But mine has it.

Now, between 25-50% of the time (and that’s a precise figure I calculated) Seconda DOES take a nap. What bliss! What rapture! I work, furiously, while Primo watches Noggin. In two hours, she wakes and I am restored, just like Lazarus. It is amazing. And she is in a good mood too, doesn’t have the colic, and we are best friends and snuggle together and I am happy.

Then bedtime approaches. David and I understand that since she’s napped, she probably won’t be quite as tired at 7:30, so bedtime creeps closer to 8:30. At 11pm she is still awake, jumping in her crib and yelling “PRIMO WAKE UP! PRIIIIIIIIIIIMMMMOOOOO!”

David and I have no evening whatsoever. I pass out in my bed, listening to her yell.

But that is not all, folks, That is not even the worst part.

The next morning, she wakes at 5am. Five o’clock in the miserable morning. And if I thought she had colic from missing her nap, she has a raging case of it when she sleeps for only 6 hours.

So. Scylla and Charybdis. Damned in I do and damned if I don’t.

This isn’t exactly what you imagine when you decide to go off your birth control.

The F*$@king Fours

So remember my frabjous day last week when Primo slept 12 hours and was the paragon of perfection? Well, I feel it is my responsibility to dissuade you from the notion that the winning streak continued. In fact, that day was just a single, solitary moment of light to keep me warm during what is sure to be a bitter cold winter of the soul as Primo works his way through his current behavioral shit-storm.

Look, I don’t enjoy talking trash about my kids, but at this point I consider it to be a valuable therapeutic exercise that will, perhaps, prevent me from thrashing the little sucker. Because my son is in the fucking fours.

I think it was the midwife at my OB practice who first introduced me to that term, when I went to see her for my six week post-partum visit after having Seconda. We were talking about how Primo was dealing with the new baby and she told us about this equilibrium/ disequilibrium thing, which more or less boils down to this: On even years, kids are awful monsters. Or something like that. Who the hell remembers exactly? I had just had a baby for Crissakes. But I clearly recall her bracing me for trouble, because, as my children are two years apart, they are always hitting the even years at the same time.

So, what I’ve got on my hands is a case of the Terrible Twos and the Fucking Fours. Don’t you wish you were me?

Now that I’ve been through both, I can tell you with assurance that the Fucking Fours are significantly worse than the Terrible Twos/ Those two extra years give kids considerable more strength, stamina and wiles. By four, most children have a nuanced understanding of their parents tragic flaws and how best to exploit them.

So what exactly is my four year-old doing that has driven me to sitting here today, eating immoderate amounts of milk chocolate with whole hazelnuts and smearing his name on the world wide web? Put it to you this way. You know those mean drunks, who get a few too many beers in them and start picking fights? And you know, it doesn’t matter what you do or say, they’ll find something to brawl over? That is my son. The only hope I have of avoiding a scene is to try and stay clear of him.

This morning, instantly upon waking, he announces that we need to perform the play of “There was an Old Woman who Swallowed Count Dracula.”

“Why don’t you make the costumes and plan the play while Mommy makes coffee?” I suggest.

Please be advised this is 6:15 am.

By 6:20 am he has finished what I was hoping would take at least 30 minutes. The kid works fast. He has drawn all of our costume pieces on construction paper and sets about taping these works of art onto everyone’s body. Vampire fangs, bolts for Frankenstein ‘s neck, horns to affix to the goblin’s head.

Seconda is the goblin, naturally, so Primo tapes horns onto her hair and she, being two, rips them right off. This process is repeated five times, with Primo growing more and more enraged and Sec growing more and more delighted by her capacity to cause such feeling in him.

Unsurprisingly, there is an “incident” which leaves the baby crying. When I pick her up I am accused of ONLY CARING ABOUT SECONDA!!!!!!!!!

We smooth things over and rehearse the play. I am – you guessed it -- the Old Lady. As such, I have to sing the following song, while opening my mouth wide to ingest my various family members dressed as Halloween spooks.

There was an Old Lady who swallowed Count Dracula

She used her spatula

To swallow Count Dracula

There was an Old Lady who swallowed Frankenstein

She asked Dr. Frankenstein

Before she swallowed Frankenstein

There was an Old Lady who swallowed a goblin

She had a big problem

When she swallowed that goblin

Perhaps she’ll DIE!!!!!!

A harrowing little ditty is so many ways.

But my little Billy Wilder is not pleased with my performance. I am not singing to the right tune! I am not acting scary enough! I am not falling down to die the correct way!

It is now 7 am. The hour at which I would hit snooze on my alarm clock in my previous life.

“FINE! I am CANCELLING the PLAY!!!!!” he yells.

“I think that is a wise idea,” I agree.

“STOP SAYING THAT!!!” he shouts, throwing himself on the floor, “BAD GIRL! BAD GIRL!”

“Bad girl!” repeats Seconda, who takes it a step further by smacking my leg.

“I’m not the one who’s BAD!” I shout back.

“I’M NOT GOING TO BE YOUR FRIEND ANYMORE!” And with that, the tantrum to end all tantrums begins. I will spare you the gory details. By the time David comes home at 8am, we are all shaky, spent, tear-stained.

This has happened every day for the last month.

The good news is that Spring Break ended today! Callou! Callay! Perhaps with the 3-6 hour break I have from Primo’s dictatorial reign, I will be able to summon the patience to make it through. As the little man himself told me this weekend, “Sometimes you think you can’t do something but you really can, if you just don’t give up. That’s what a challenge is.” One to grow on.