The Crazy Crowfoots: damage control

my husband's friend asked me if i could give some advice to her daughter about surviving with a toddler.

i try to be really honest about mothering and parenthood, so i'm sorry if i gave the impression of perfect parenting over here, and made people to believe that i was actually qualified in giving advice.

i laugh, only because i am constantly looking for advice - ok, maybe not advice - maybe just people out there going through the same ordeal of SURVIVING a toddler...

and baby,

and preteen diva,

or know-it-all little man.

sigh.

so here's the dealio.

once upon a time - feel free to skip ahead if you've heard this story before - i was an early childhood major. i taught first grade and preschool.

one day, the sensei of all that is early childhood education, came up to me and basically said i was the bomb in a room full of my peers. and like the egocentric 20 year old that i was, i let it get to my head...big time.

i told my mom i'd have perfect kids, because, well, i'd be the perfect mother - duh.

i mean, if i could wrangle 15 kids twice a day, four times a week, and receive praise from parents about how their kids would never have done this or that without my teaching -

being a parent would be a piece of cake.

in the past month, my daughter has tried to escape and run away from the house and gated patio, causing her to squash her toe and lose a toenail in the process.

my toddler broke into our landlord's house and got out all his GLASS christmas ornaments.

back in april, a neighbor called the cops on me claiming my daughter was running around in the middle of the street unsupervised for at least 10 minutes, so i was told. ahem, just to be clear, it was only 3, and i was rushing upstairs to put the baby down for a nap, and ran back downstairs only to find that the toddler had broken through the child locks and was chit-chatting it up with the officer on the patio.

regardless, it was pretty humiliating.

we've been unwelcome at certain people's homes because they think my kids are monsters.

i dress my babies and by lunch time they are naked again.

i brush hair and attach pretty bows to pretty ponytails - only to be thanked with the chore of getting out the peanut butter, again, to free the sticky gum from ratted hair, again.

for the love of ice cream, is it too much to ask for 10 minutes of food-free hair?!

and in case you're wondering, the food choice of today's flavored hair is fried egg.

the yellow yolk adds a nice highlight.

the past few days i've been finding those stupid wads of red wax - you know the ones that those cute circles of cheese are encased in? yeah, those dumb things are smeared all over the floor and t.v. i've practically given up on mopping anymore.

i'm in the middle of moving - or supposed to be. and i think i've taken 20+ bags of toys, clothes, and junk to goodwill. we're on our way to becoming a minimalist family because i just can't take the clutter on top of chasing one toddler who ran out of the door, only to find that the other is right on my heels...and bolting for our (luckily) dead end road.

i chop up grilled chicken and fresh red peppers for lunch, place them on the table, turn around - and in those 5 seconds - i see the toddler trying to be like mommy, cutting up more red peppers and getting blood all over the place.

i was talking to my mom last night and my kids were crowding me - giving me bunny ears and licking my face (ew!), crawling to the top of the couch and jumping into my lap (yes, that hurts), and fighting and screaming and telling me so and so did this or that. i told my mom just before i got off the phone, "remember those cows we'd see at grandma's house. well, i remember watching the baby cows come up to the mama cow and the mama cow would nudge them away. i always thought the mama cows were so mean. but, i get them now. they just wanted some freaking space."

i am naive in the fact that i try to reason and have a heart to heart talk with the toddler about my feelings and the damage she is doing to my self-esteem as a mother. it seems to work with my 8 and 6 year old. the toddler blows raspberries in my face in response to my outpouring.

sometimes i brush my hair and most times i'm in flip flops and booger-smeared yoga pants. my hands stick to tables and my feet stick to floors and crumbs. and i hate properly capitalizing my words because it takes too damn long - because in the amount of time i'm pressing the shift key - my toddlers are probably out the door, or somehow locking me out of one. and by the sound of things, so far, it would seem i'm incredibly guilty of child neglect.

who's watching these crazy kids anyway?!

speaking of which...

some time between the time i was watching her and the time i wasn't, i go upstairs to my bedroom and it has been ransacked - you'd think i'd been robbed.

and you'd be right. because actually, today, i'm missing a wad of cash and my keys.

my purse is completely empty except for a few crumbs of old toddler snacks, i'm sure.

i've spent my morning overturning couch cushions and mattresses, looking under car seats, and in the dark corners of pantries and basements.

and here is whatever little tidbit of wisdom i've gathered so far as a mother.

there are going to be days of perfect, of kisses, of hugs, of happy, of cute faces smeared in chocolate, of babies talking their first talk, and it all makes me feel so alive and so completely fabulous.

and then there's today, when my sole purpose is damage control and anger control, and i just have to turn on mickey mouse clubhouse and let my kids fry their brains in front of the t.v. screen, run away to my bedroom and write all this out because i don't have my keys or my wad of cash, because all i want to do is zone out and watch a movie, or better yet - watch an episode of "the real housewives of something or other" to make myself feel better...

cuddled up with a pile of hostess cupcakes beside me, and one in my hand, of course.

but there's one thing i'm missing.

those damn keys.

****

oh yeah, the rest of the advice...it gets better. if i didn't already know that with the two older ones, i think i'd be having a nervous breakdown now. but all this toddler stuff, i'll survive it, and someday look back as i eat my hostess cupcake, and i'll be glad i relished it all...

and so will you.

our day:

"keys!! wheh ah you?? cah out, cah out, wheh eva you ah!"