Not. My. Day.

Warning: I’m going to complain. A lot. I don’t consider myself a complainer, so I hope I don’t come across as one in most of my posts. I deal with life with sarcasm and humor, but I try not to bitch too much. However, today I’m going to complain because today was not my day.

Last night was my night, though, and I don’t mean in a good way. I mean my night “on.” This may come as a huge surprise, but it was another long one. (Side note: A few people have suggested we consider co-sleeping and I sincerely appreciate the suggestion. Honestly, I mean that. I’m always open to any and all advice you have to offer because, if you haven’t noticed, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing! We actually did try very, very hard to co-sleep.  I’ve been meaning to write about that b/c it’s another one of those things that has made me feel like a crappy parent. I had a mindset the opposite of a lot of parents: we were co-sleeping come hell or high water. We did it in VN, obviously, and for a few weeks once we were home. Unfortunately, Mattix throws himself around at night rather violently. He can often sleep through it unless he ”runs into” something or someone. When we were co-sleeping, he was constantly hitting Ed or I or the headboard, causing him to wake up. When he sleeps in his crib, if we put his feet up against one end, it takes him a little longer to scooch to the top, where he wakes himself up when his head touches the other end of the crib. Sometimes it takes a few hours, sometimes it takes 20 minutes, but it always takes longer than when he sleeps with us. We really tried, but found that he was even more exhausted the days following the nights that he slept in our bed. We also tried the Pack N’ Play in our room, but same thing. So, we ended up with the crib. While we were in VN, I actually wrote about how I was never going to put him in his crib. (“The idea of a crib for sleeping really bothers me (this is just my issue)…”) Yeah, well, that’s yet another thing I can’t get right!!!)

So, last night was a long one and I was obviously very tired today. And cranky! Even when I’m really tried, I consider myself to be a fairly happy person. But today? Not so much. I went to the lab this morning to have blood drawn, which is no big deal because I’ve had my blood drawn regularly since I was nine. However, today, for maybe the fourth time in my entire life (I’m talking almost monthly blood draws here), she managed to hit a nerve in my arm. Because I was so tired, I offered up my right arm, which I NEVER do just in case what happened today happens. Ugh. I can’t bend my arm much past 90 degrees without experiencing shooting pain, followed by dead arm. Not so good when you have to carry the little guy around and you’re right handed. That is so not a big deal. Seriously. Not at all. When we had our travel immunizations, the nurse doing those hit a nerve that ran down my arm and across my entire chest. I was in some serious pain for a week and it didn’t faze me, but because today was just not my day, it really hit a nerve. Ha ha ha, I’m so funny (or lame, depending on how you look at it…).

So that’s how it started. Mattix was finally exhausted enough to be in a really, really bad mood today. I’ve been waiting for that for a long time. I mean, how can the kid sleep so little and be happy every day?!?! Even so, I shouldn’t complain b/c his bad mood really just entailed a lot of screaming/crying and not knowing what he wanted. He didn’t even get frustrated and hit, which was great, so I still shouldn’t be complaining, right?!

By this evening, I was hanging on by a thread. I was exhausted, my dead right arm was hanging by my side while I tried to carry Mattix around on my left hip, and of all the days for him to refuse to be set down, today was that day. He screamed when I put him down, screamed when I picked him up, screamed when I tried to rock him. (I should qualify “scream.” Screaming for him is not as loud as you might think. He’s not a super loud screamer. It’s just louder than his normal crying.) You get the idea. It was not a good day for either of us.  

Still, it was sort of manageable because everyone has an off day now and then. But of course, I couldn’t just leave it at that. I went downstairs to feed Mattix dinner, strapped him into the high chair, and opened the fridge to retrieve a jar of baby food. And that’s when the grand finale to my shit day occurred. I knocked the nearly-full glass jar of Whole Food’s maple syrup out of the fridge. And that baby shattered. Everywhere. Whole Foods is serious about thick glass. I was literally covered in maple syrup. It was in my hair, on my face, all over my clothes, and ABSOLUTELY EVERYWHERE in my kitchen. I didn’t know a jar of maple syrup could create that kind of back splash!  Shattered glass and sticky maple syrup all over the floor, the fridge, the dishwasher, the cabinets, me. I have to say that I’m very, very grateful that Mattix was in his highchair and not on the floor, because his favorite place to hang out is by the fridge, where he b-lines it while I’m getting his food ready. I don’t even want to think about that b/c the glass was just everywhere. Also working in my favor was my decision to put the dogs in the back yard to go potty (ha ha, as if Slinky would actually go potty in the yard….I’m sure she was holding out for the carpet) just seconds before putting Mattix in his high chair. They would have certainly gotten into the glass. And finally, I was wearing slippers. although I never go barefoot, so that’s not really a bonus.

Anyway, it was a total disaster. First, I went upstairs and literally peeled off my clothes, which were PASTED to my body with the syrup. I took a shower while Mattix screamed bloody murder (probably b/c he had to see me naked), then threw the mess of clothes in the washing machine. Next, I called Ed, who was on his way home, to tell him that although I was seriously looking forward to the lemon grass chicken that he was going to make for dinner, the kitchen looked like a war zone and the area surrounding the fridge was ground zero. I was bummed because Ed has been making a lot of VNese food lately and it’s awesome. He made some kick ass pho the other day and I love, love, love his lemon grass chicken, but trust me, if you saw our kitchen, you would have called it a loss, too.

As it turns out, this must have been destined to happen. My day truly sucked and dropping that glass container of maple syrup screwed my night, too (I’ll tell you about how I had to clean it up in a minute), but without that little incident, I never would have seen my son do this:

There are more photos (scroll down) and they are hilarious! Ed came home with In N’ Out b/c there was no chance he was going to cook in that kitchen. We don’t eat fast food ever, with the exception of In N’ Out, which we only eat once or twice a month at the very most. I can’t remember the last time I actually ate anything from a fast food joint other than In N’ Out, and I only started eating it every once in a while a few years ago after I started eating red meat again (when I was diagnosed with Celiac b/c it was just too hard to voluntarily limit my diet when I was being forced to involuntarily cut out so much other stuff). If you read Fast Food Nation, you’ll never eat anything from a fast food joint other than In N’ Out, too! Anyway, we never eat any fast food other than In N’ Out, and we eat it quite infrequently.  In fact, this was the first time we had it since returning from VN, so somebody please tell me why my son wanted it so desperately that he was eating the frickin’ bag!!!!!! He has never even had a french fry! Seriously! When I say this boy’s an eater, I’m not messing around. He is a little porker.

Anyway, Ed walked in, came upstairs to find me rocking back and forth in the corner b/c I was thinking about the mess downstairs that I was going to have to clean up after dinner, and tossed the bag on the coffee table/ottoman.  As soon as it hit the surface, Mattix was all over it, trying to eat the bag. Man, my day and evening sucked, but this? This was priceless!!! Ed even braved the war zone to retrieve a jar of baby food, but little man was having none of it. He wanted what was in the bag, pronto!

Excuse me, Mom. Open the damn bag, please.

You’re taking too long! I’ll just lick it!

Mmmmmm. Tastes good. I must get to the contents. I will just eat the bag.

What? Quit judging me. You’re the one who won’t open the bag.

Hmmm. I’ll try a different angle….

Damn it! Just open it already!

Back to my licking strategy. If the giant blond wench would only open the bag….

This is getting a little ridiculous!

Never in a million years would I have expected this. Ed and I laughed so hard we couldn’t see straight. I was sure Matitix would quit as soon as I grabbed the camera, but he was so determined, he barely noticed me. When I finally put the camera down, Ed set a tray out and I opened the bag. Of course I could not deny the world’s cutest baby, so I broke up a few fries and let him go to town. It was like a repeat of the ice cream incident. He laughed, giggled, ooohhhed and aaahhhed. Apparently, the boy’s like his mama. He loves him some fries.

Just so the irony doesn’t escape you, that IS a jar of organic peas and rice, which he usually LOVES, next to the fries. And just in case you think I’m the worst parent ever, we did feed him 3/4 of the jar of baby food after a few fries.

Hmmmm, fries or peas? Fries or peas? Decisions, decisions!

This is a tough one. Do I do the right thing, or follow my gut (literally)?

I have the answer! I shall eat the fries first, then eat some of the green crap.

Anyway, that was all sorts of fun, but cleaning up the mess…not so much. It took two and a half hours. Maple syrup is freaking sticky. First I walked around and picked up as many large glass pieces as I could, then I cleared everything out of the kitchen (including Matti’x toys and the dining room chairs, the high chair, the dog bed, etc.), then I wet mopped the best that I could, pushing the rest of the larger pieces of glass into a pile and picking them up with a paper towel. At that point, it was clear that I had not even made a dent. I waited for the water to dry, vacuumed the floor with the stick vacuum, then used the good old Hoover Floor Mate,hoping to suck up the last of the glass and get the damn sticky off. Yeah, that thing’s a beast. It is heavy and takes forever. I love how clean it gets the floors, but I was so not in the mood tonight, especially with my messed up arm. So, as Ed was putting Mattix to bed, I did what any overwhelmed, gimp-armed mommy does. I used my half-functional right arm to carry around my glass of wine and my left arm to push the Floor Mate. It did not go too well. There were many collisions with the walls and appliances, as I am not ambidextrous. However, as the process wore on, I cared less and less, thank you very much merlot. After 45 minutes, the Floor Mate had done it’s job, only it had not done it perfectly. This was the first time the floor mate let me down. Just a year ago, it saved me from the broken-jar-of-vegan-mayo-fiasco. Tonight, the damn floor was STILL sticky. I ended up on my hands and knees with a wad of paper towels and a bottle of Windex. Holy hell it was a long night. At some point, I was trying to figure out if there was anyone you can call for this sort of thing (yeah, I was that desperate). Besides the obvious stickiness, I was really worried about the glass, as Mattix crawls everywhere. After the Windex, I broke out the stick vacuum again for one last clean up. Two and a half hours later, you could eat off of my damn floor and most likely not choke on any glass. Oh yeah, and I’m not even going to get into the wood flooring b/c somehow, the stuff managed to make it all the way into that room, too.

And that, my friends, was my long, long day and even longer night. If not for Mattix’s hilarious antics with the In N’ Out bag, I would be curled up in the fetal position right now. However, my boy never lets me down! He’s a funny one for sure. I can’t get over his personality. I have no idea how he knew that the contents of the In N’ Out bag were so good, but he obviously knew! I love this kid, for the obvious reasons and for the funny ones, too. I still have a bunch of cute photos from the other day, but I could not pass up the opportunity to share these. Hope your day was better than mine!