They Can Have Him.

In the early days of my life as a mother, especially those early days as a mother of two, I spent a lot of time in the car crying and wondering how I was ever going to get through these years. Keeping in mind I have a very low tolerance for adversity or stress. I spent the first 15 years of my life just surviving, so I think that's why I am now unable to function well under stress.

Max was a few months old and my old MOMS Club planned a trip to a local waterpark. Since Madison has always loved water I thought this would be a good event to attend. I even thought enough ahead to get a neighbor girl to come along and help me out with Maddie and the baby.

We arrived and Madison, who hates large crowds and is easily overstimulated by children running wild (just like me. Damn.), was immediately overwhelmed. She began crying and begging to go home. But I'd just paid $35 dollars in admission and we were going to have some fucking fun. So I tried to just sit with the other mothers, giving Maddie some time to settle down. It really didn't work and she spent an hour crying and whining and begging to leave this place. So I gathered up all our crap and started to leave, fighting back tears. Max, by this time, had also started crying. I struggled through the crowds to leave and my stupid sarong, which I'd worn to cover up my post partum body, got tangled up in the stroller wheels and fell off.

WOOO HOOOO! That was an awesome day. I drove home that day sobbing and wanting to kill Madison for not being a "normal" easy going child. Why won't she have any fun!? I should never have had two children. Why did I do this? The poor neighbor girl.....she got to witness post partum depression first hand that day.

Another banner day in my early mothering was the day Madison appeared to be losing her mind. It turned out she had a raging sinus infection as a result of the "Plaster of Paris" incident.

We went out to lunch one afternoon before she was diagnosed and I had started to believe she was just plain crazy. In the span of 4 minutes, Madison poured a glass of water on the table. In the amount of time it took me to let the waitress know we'd be leaving so cancel our order she also dumped all the sugar and all the salt on the table and was heading for the ketchup when I made it back to the table.

On the 3 block walk back to our car, Madison screamed and cried. I pushed the stroller and dragged her by her arm down the sidewalk. She eventually threw herself onto the concrete and cracked a tooth and there we both were, in downtown Birmingham, sobbing our heads off.

At least my clothes didn't fall off, that time.

It's not just Madison either. I've left carts of groceries because of Max. I've been vomited on during a Maxwell tantrum. Sometimes, in those earlier days, I wondered if Max's goal wasn't to humiliate me in public everytime we left the house.

But now, now it's different.

I rarely cry in the car anymore and I also rarely wonder who these demonic little people are and how it is I raised them. I'm mostly pretty pleased with how they're turning out. They talk a lot but that's not a character flaw and it's also something a little duct tape takes care of.

Yes, it's different now, most of the time.

Except yesterday I took Max to buy a BIKE! A two wheeler with training wheels! And flames on the side because it goes so fucking fast! Unfortunately, next to the bikes were the battery powered items. And Max wondered why he couldn't have one of those.

I glossed. We're buying a bicycle today and isn't this one awesome? How about these flames? This is the best bike I've ever seen.

He became sullen and whiney.

I became angry. What kind of child doesn't appreciate what he's getting but wants something better? But then again, I wonder where he's learned that? Maybe he learned it on Sunday when I took the children with me to fondle The Camera for nearly 3 hours.

On the walk to the register he decided he really needed shark goggles. Now. Since I said no, he said he hated me. Now we're in the check out line, and yes, it occured to me this monster didn't deserve to get a bike that day. But we were at Walmart and I really hate Walmart and I really try to avoid going there. I've been there three times in my entire life and I'm trying to keep my life long visits to under five.

People stared at us in the line because, gosh, why is that child crying while his mother is buying him a bike?

I didn't cry on the way home but I was so angry and as I drove I shook my head in disbelief. How do I have a child who doesn't appreciate getting a brand new bike?

I don't miss those days when I didn't think I'd make it through mothering. I don't miss questioning the job I was doing almost daily. I don't want to go back to that place.

So I decided to leave Max at Walmart.

Comments

[Wayne]

I don't know what to say except that I really enjoyed reading this. :)

[JuJuBee]

Why in the hell have I never thought to do that?!

[kathy]

So I decided to leave Max at Walmart = wise choice!

[k]

how do you do it? you are fucking funny.

[karyn]

Thanks for letting me know there is a light at the end of the toddler tunnel!

[Karen]

Too funny. The picture of Madison reminds me of what my family calls "The Baby Powder Incident". I was 4 years old and my grandmother came to visit from California. She always came bearing gifts, and this time my gift was a bottle of baby powder. I had a strange fascination with clowns, so of course my first thought was to use the baby powder to give myself the best clown face ever. I went upstairs to my bathroom and completely covered not only myself, but the entire bathroom with a thick coat of baby powder. I went back downstairs, so pleased with myself, and said to everyone, "Look, I'm a clown!".

[Stacy]

BWAAAAAA HAAAAAAA HAAAAAAA HAAAAAAA!

[Heather]

No need to worry about Max........ I left shelbey and brittany at walmart 3 years ago. They are probably all playing with shark goggles and ballerina shoes. We'll pick 'em up when walmart even notices they are there.

[-erica]

I had a Baby Powder Incident, too. My first son was still in diapers and I had him on the changing table, and he grabbed the open baby powder and dumped it all over his head. (This has happened to EVERYONE, RIGHT? Right?) It was all caked in his eyes. I freaked and read the packaging which said NOTHING about the toxicity of cornstarch in the EYES. So I called poison control, and they were stumped. They told me to flush his eyes with water for TEN MINUTES just to make sure everything would be OK, JUST IN CASE. I thought about the idea of holding a wiggling screaming baby's head upside down in the bathroom sink for TEN MINUTES. I decided he would be traumatized for life, and perhaps me too. So I didn't do it, I just finished wiping his face off with a wet washcloth and put him in a nap. He lived, and he's not blind. Why does this make me feel like a bad mom?!?!

[SuperMomIsDead]

My 6 year old is exactly the same way. We had a very similar bike purchasing experience at Walmart and bitch that I am - I made the ungrateful brat walk the bike back to the bike aisle and took him out of the store. Needless to say, he did not leave quietly.

Fortunately, my husband was with me and stayed behind to purchase the bike without our son knowing. We even smuggled it into the trunk of the car undetected while all hell broke loose inside the car. (Ugly, ugly tantrums here! The kids, too.) Eventually, he earned the bike and we thought he learned a valuable lesson.

Heh - until we repeated the *exact* scene over the weekend when we went to buy a pool...

[MelissaS]

I thought I'd just not let him ride on the bike as a punishment, but it turns out...riding the bike is a punishment.

I have a headache.

[Miranda]

I went the whole bad mommy route with regard to bike training. I waited until oldest son was old enough to teach himself. No musss. No fuss. No tears. It scares them when I do that. I'm fast on the way to using the same technique with daughter.

Can I leave my mother at Walmart the next time she insists I drive her there? If I take her to the one by me, she might not ever find her way home. Even better than leaving my children there.

[Heatheranne]

Thank god my son isn't the only kid who does that. He's twelve years old and STILL pulls that shit. I'll take him to the store for a new game and he'll see something else he wants and when I tell him "no" he informs me that I'm mean and he never gets ANYTHING. At that point, I put the game back and say "Nope, and you're not getting this either."

[Texas T-bone]

I think I deserve a medal for going to Wal-Mart every freakin' week. Sometimes twice in one week. To be clear, I'm a man and I do most of the grocery shopping. What is this world coming to?

Are you sure the flaming bike is suitable for your "gay" child? Har!

[christa]

I'm always of two minds when I read really funny parent blogs such as yours. First, I am soooo thankful I'm not the only one going through this. But on the other hand, I'm scared shitless because I realize it's not going to get better anytime soon. So . . . thanks?

[Mar]

Maybe it's Wal-Mart!The only time my son has ever had a full blown, out in public, make-you-blush-crimson-to-the-roots-of-your-hair tantrum was at Wal-Mart. We were only on our second ever trip to Walmart, and my husband joked I didn't go back for over a year because I was so traumatized.

I really didn't go back because I'm pretty sure I saw them putting his picture up on a "Wanted" poster in the front of the store.

[Lisa V]

It does get better. I just took my 13 year old and 11 year old on a trip and it was not only bearable, but enjoyable. It's so rare though, that I had to blog about it so I would remember it.

I have tried to leave my kids at Target, but they always want the damn reciept for a return. I am completely disorganzied, so who knows where they are. I am trying Walmart next time.

[julia]

Just wanted to say, you are looking at the Canon 350D XT, right? That's the newest Canon in that "entry level" line and it has a better sensor and is MUCH smaller and lighter. And it is only $100 more, which I know is a lot, but not if it means you won't break your shoulder and will be more likely to take it with you wherever you go, thus getting your money out of a ridiculously expensive camera. So definitely look at that. It's an improvement. I'm totally saving up for one and went and fondled one, myself the other day. Yum.

[jilbur]

There is something about having one of the Peak Climactic Special Events that brings out insanity and rabid ungraciousness in young children. My worst memory of such was when we took a long-anticipated trip to the Big Apple Circus, and my daughter was relentlessly, whinily, brattily, psychotically focussed only upon what kind of swag we'd buy for her in the lobby. I wanted to find the most depraved, forlorn, ill-equipped and impoverished orphanage on the continent and leave her there. Unfortunately I was never able to find one bad enough so I kept her.

But when we relented and got her a large white plush horse there, it did become one of her favorite 'friends', and to this day she has very fond memories of when we got it for her (*eyeroll*), and when I think about it, $10 was not much to pay for a 20" plush horse.

[julia]

Oh, and I'm not being a robot about the other stuff in the post. It hits home, precisely. I don't have anything good to say, just you are a great mom and Christ it sucks being a mom sometimes.

[Karen]

My kids were rotten as babies but then EASY as toddlers. I think that everyone gets it really bad at least once (probably twice: I imagine all teenagers are horrible). I could never take my kids anywhere when they were babies because they NEVER stopped crying. NEVER. All the other moms would be strolling their babies around the mall or the park and I'd be sitting home alone crying because I didn't have the kind of kids who liked to be strolled anywhere. For now they're great. I like to think I paid up front.

[Andrea]

Everytime I leave from one of our playdates I say "I'm not going to complain about Chloe anymore. I'm getting sick of talking about all of the things she does so I can just imagine what the poor other moms are thinking." This is the last story, I promise! Well, the reason why I have time to write this right now is because both Caroline and the little devil child are sleeping (didn't even get to lunchtime) and my friend Anne took pity on me and let Julia go over to her house for a couple of hours. Foolishly, I took all three kids (along with Anne and her three well behaved children) to Costco this morning to pick up some flowers for Saturday night. I'm not sure but I believe that EVERY SINGLE PERSON in Costco now knows Chloe's name and has probably received some sort of momento from her in the form of either scratches, bruises, or at the very least, damaged ear drums. Just when I have a good day and think that maybe I've turned a corner...WHAM! I am so over this!

As far as the knife party with your psycho cousin goes, I think it would be in everyone's best interest (especially Chloe's) that I not have anything that could be used as a weapon in the house. In fact, I just added my knife set to the boxes of garage sale crap piling up in the basement. We will be eating with spoons from now on.

[Amy]

Thank god someone else on the planet has children as horrifying in public as mine. I could've written this post. My son would totally do that. Has done it. Will do it again. My daughter used to cling to me and cry wherever I took her, no matter how FUN it was or how much I paid to get us in, until she was three. There was an incident with a trip to Jamba Juice when my son was a few months old and my daughter ... well, let's not go there this morning. Luckily, I am being evaluated for prescription drugs on Friday.

[gretchen]

speaking of the Rebel, check this out:

http://tinyurl.com/bhrcy

[Sarcastic Journalist]

for tjat to happen at the EVIL EMPIRE? thats a tough choice no mother should have to make.

[Laura]

I have to say that Wal-Mart is just like a blue-collar water park. But instead of kids running wild, it's entire families looking for those cut-back prices! No wonder I get overstimulated as soon as we pull into the oversized, RV-ridden parking lot.

[meganann]

Well, you could probably get him back when they clearance him out, if you want him then. Meanwhile, if Maddie misbehaves, you can threaten her with a "roll-back" too. Is Logan back yet? You need a break.

[Angel]

Ohhhhhh I feel your pain. Sometimes I am struck by an insane notion to take both kids to the store at once. I think I suffer from tantrum amnesia because I'm always left with the sense of OH YEAH that's why I like shopping BY MYSELF.

Thanks for letting us know how normal motherhood really is ;)

[laura]

How many us have a baby powder incident in our past? I remember I did it for my brother, thinking "This will be really fun for Andy." So have you heard from Max? Or did you change your number?

[Katy]

Ah yes. The Crying Days. I remember them well. The days when you just know that all the other mommies (the ones with only one child apiece) are looking at you and thinking "I would never talk to MY kid that way."
The mommies with two kids? They show up later with some gin & tonic.

[Karen C.]

(shivering from flashback of own toddler's tantrums). I so know where you are coming from. I have 2 children, son now 9 and daughter 3.

When my son was about 4, (Max's age) we were at Round Table picking up a pizza for dinner. He was pestering me for the $.50 stickers they sell in those silly machines and I let him have 1. He knew I had more quarters because he had seen them when I fished out the first 2. (Darn it). So, while were waiting for the pizza he's continuously bugging me for another, didn't like the first one he got. I'm, of course, putting my foot down because it's a stupid waste of money to begin with. So after about 10 mins. of whining, begging, I tell him if he asks one more time I will throw away the one he has.

This stops him while I collect the pizza and we start out the door. On the way to the car it starts again, and I snatch the sticker out of his hand, hold it up for him to see, and say "ok, I warned you. It's done." and promptly drop the sticker in the nearby garbage can.

I think he was so shocked he turned into some kind of demon. He screamed "Get it back!" in a horrible voice and went completely nuts in front of 15 or so strangers. Everyone froze and stared. It was terrible. He didn't cry like a normal tantrum, he went into a rage! I had to pull him away and put him the car while the entire parking lot and the customers at the next door grocery store got a show. Fun. But glad I stuck to my guns.

You're right, Walmart sucks. Target is better.

[Eve]

Good decision. He will be fine. There is probably an entire subculture of kids left at Walmart lurking in the toy department. They have everything a child could need anyway.
I love the pic of "The Phantom of the Plaster of Paris".

You are so fun to read!

[SAHM]

They play so cutsie-wootsie and small, but they are actually the smartest on the planet... they know just when to pull out the big-guns and ruin you. I had a crying incident in the car just today - glad to know I'm not the only one with an infant who does that.

[amy]

LOL!!! Gasp, you are a riot!

[Torrie]

You should have just given him a cardboard box.
Kids love that shit.

[silvermine]

I was the last of four kids. I don't think my parents ever took me near a toy store or the toy aisle. :P I just got whatever they picked out when they went places without me.

I think I'm going to start doing that before my toddler's big enough to get too much more annoying....

[Poppy]

What timing. I actually spent 30 minutes of my day crying in my car in the Wal-Mart parking lot, thanks to the screaming 16-month-old she-demon (who was distraught and very angry about getting a wading pool) and clothes falling off my body. Why didn't it occur to me to leave the she-demon and my defective underwear there? I knew I should have checked here before I left the house today.

New rule: never leave house without reading Suburban Bliss, for Melissa is wise and has walked this path before me. Or something.

[DM]

My God. I don't know how you do it. This is one of the reasons I made the choice to never be a mother because I know perfectly well that I would snap and be one of those women you hear about on TV.

It constantly amazes me, especially after reading this and the comments, how mothers manage to get through days like this and not go completely and totally insane. My hat is off to you all. Seriously, you should all get medals.

And I do apologize but I can't help laughing over these things. I know it's really not that funny when you're dealing with it but you have such a great way of telling stories that I have to giggle.

My mom, whenever my sister and I would act up in a store, would give us one warning to behave. If we didn't, she would stop whatever we were doing and we would leave the store and head home. She never left me at the stores but, if I didn't behave, I was grounded from the library. That was usually enough of a threat. Yes, I was a nerd.

[Ella]

Wonderful post! My three and two year olds make me question daily why I chose to be a parent. I wish I'd known about your blog in my crying days.

[Leslie P.]

If you happen to talk to Max tell him that T.J. is in the underwear department...
enough said!

[Romani Heart]

Mine's 19 (20 in August) and it DOES get easier. Well, let's say it gets DIFFERENT. By the time the girl child was about 4 she could negotiate anything, why she's not pre-law I'll never know. Now I get to deal with the fact that she's an English major, but doesn't want to teach. Next semester she's taking third year Russian and first year Japanese (English major?) I tell her she can get a job at Disney World, flippin burgers in four languages (she took three years of Spanish in high school lol)

[Bella]

Once at Target, one of my twins was having a major breakdown. I asked some strangers if they would like to buy him.

[clickmom]

Wow, I feel for you. I feel your pain, I mean really feel your pain. My boys are 4,8, and 12. I really really really feel your pain.

[Cori]

When my kids start acting like that and everyone within a 25 foot radius is staring, I tell the kids, very loudly, that "Your parents are going to hear all about how badly you acted when Auntie took you shopping!" At least no one thinks *I* am responsible for their bratty behavior.

[Leah]

You are AWESOME! I really think you should write a book with the collections of your funny blog posts (like this one and all the ones pertaining to torturing your mother!). It would be better than, Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott!

[Sarah]

Ha! Wonderful!

[Kim]

I love your blog and I must say, you remind me of me. This is my fucking life spelled out on your blog! The only difference is that I have 4 kids, all girls. But hey, Max is gay so he counts as a girl, right? I am always telling my kids that they are not allowed to say that 'It is not fair.' When they say it I tell them that starving children are not fair, people being killed and drowned by their parents are not fair, that car crashes are not fair. That your sister has a tiny bit more milk than you, who gives a fuck? It isn't like the milk is gone and we will never get more. I wonder why we had kids every day! Maybe I will leave them in North Carolina when we go on vacation, good idea. It will make for an awesome ride home!

[Kim]

I love your blog and I must say, you remind me of me. This is my fucking life spelled out on your blog! The only difference is that I have 4 kids, all girls. But hey, Max is gay so he counts as a girl, right? I am always telling my kids that they are not allowed to say that 'It is not fair.' When they say it I tell them that starving children are not fair, people being killed and drowned by their parents are not fair, that car crashes are not fair. That your sister has a tiny bit more milk than you, who gives a fuck? It isn't like the milk is gone and we will never get more. I wonder why we had kids every day! Maybe I will leave them in North Carolina when we go on vacation, good idea. It will make for an awesome ride home!

[amy]

Hmm, since riding the bike is 'punishment' maybe you should swallow your pride, go back to the dreaded store and get your money back. Put it in the camera fund :)

[Phil]

Cori's idea makes a lot of sense -- as long as the child is a mute, I think.

Hey, if Max turns into an employee, he can get you one of them cameras with the employee discount, right? Oh, except for WalMart doesn't have those cameras. But wait, Sam's Club does!

[briantologist]

Melissa, I want you to know I think you did the right thing.

[mom of 2 under 4]

I saw Max at Wal-Mart. He found the Animal Crackers...doing fine.

[styro]

That's it, if I ever have kids, I'm totally investing in buying off a really corrupt pharmacist so I can get the best kid-doping drugs money can buy.

[Deborah]

When I go to Walmart and see a mother with a child on the floor screaming and another hanging on to her shorts sobbing I think, "Glad it isn't me today!" Because it usually is me. My daughter has just gotten over the crying begging whining stage of shopping. She is ten. She is now an informed beggar; she will pick an item off the shelf and say, "Hm. 100% juice with ten percent less sugar! AND it is on sale...what a bargain." I like that much better than her brother who still employs the 'throw myself to the floor and wail' method of begging.

[Lil' Sis]

I totally feel for you. Mine is about 45 and a coworker (with a Master's degree), but if I don't hold her hand (or apparently MOVE HER HAND FOR HER) through every daily task, she bitches to me and everyone else in the office that I'm lazy and all I do is sit around. Now, granted, I do spend waaay too much time on this website when I am supposed to be working, but not THAT much. I suppose she's more like a bratty pre-teen than a 4-year-old.
-Miao.

[MelissaS]

Well we knew they'd hired the wrong person didn't we. bastards.

[julie]

I've only got one, Thank God, and he was never a tantrum kid, but he was also the child who was never FUCKING happy!
No matter what. Woe, woe, woe fuckin', woe.
If one small incident happened in a day, say---- his favorite shirt was not clean or the sky was blue, the whole day was ruined.
He's 13 now and getting much better.

I love your blog.

[Stacey]

o.m.g. I know quite well the way you felt in the checkout at Walmart. My daughter screamed how much she hated me all the way through the checkout and into the car because I wouldn't get her the "My Little Pony" *and* the uber cool glittery lip gloss. My little bundle of sunshine and kisses :o) I left the damn pony in the street and drove off...ya ya...I went back and got it, but you really should have seen her FREAK out when I told her I was going to run it over. Hey, why cry when you can laugh? I am the worst mom EVER.