'Tis the Fucking Season

It is not in my nature to be one of those parents who goes to wait in line outside a toy store at 3am so that I can push, trample and punch my way to the hottest coolest toy just because my kid wants it.  It will just never happen.  Luckily, Lila's tastes are pretty simple and far-reaching.   

All year long, Lila sees toys on TV, screams and cries to Grandma, and lo and behold, they show up at Grandma's house within a few days.  Most of the year this is annoying to me (who is determined not to raise a spoiled asshole kid who thinks she is loved only based on what we give her) but whatever.  I cannot change the nature of my mother as Grandma. 

Thank goodness that everyone withholds that kind of spoiling during the month of December in lieu of waiting for the windfall that is Christmas.  Everyone, that is, except for Grandma.

Lila told me after Thanksgiving that there was only one thing she wanted for Christmas and that was the unicorn Pillow Pet (see previous post).  This was going to simplify things tremendously because Santa would bring that and then several cheap toys from Wal-Mart, some socks and underwear, and $10 worth of dollar store stocking stuffers and we would have another affordable and easy Christmas before Lila got old enough to know any better. 
Until last week, a few days before we were going to visit Santa.   I went to pick Lila up at my mother's house, and she was so excited to show me what "came early" from Santa.  My asshole mother went out and bought her the Unicorn.  And not only did she go out and buy it for her.  She gave it to her.  With less than 3 weeks before Christmas, my mother presented Lila with the one item she desperately wanted Santa to bring her. 

To complicate matters further, my mother THEN handed Lila the ToysRUs ad and told her to circle the things she wanted.  Lila circled a $1500 swing set, a $200 doll house, 3 bikes, a Barbie Power Wheels Escalade (so she can "drive her dolls around") and anything she saw that was related to Disney Princesses or Dora the Explorer.  At bedtime I tried to sit her down to explain that she can only ask Santa for a couple of things.  She was confused but said she would think about it. 

The next morning, she found a little pamphlet that had come with another toy that she's had for months.  If you've never heard of the Playmobil sets you're missing out.  They're actually kind of cool, if not a little too advanced for my 3 year old kid.  Lila decided she needed to have the amazingly detailed schoolhouse set and the hospital set which I believe has over 300 pieces.  For the next several days, all she talked about was asking Santa for the school and the hospital.  She specifically put the pamphlet into her Tinkerbell backpack so that she would remember it when we went to see him.  She stared at the pamphlet lovingly naming all the little characters in the picture.  I asked her if there was anything else she was going to ask Santa for and she said, just a coloring book and some paint.

Breakfast with Santa day arrived and she sat on his lap and told him in no uncertain terms that she wanted a play schoolhouse, a play hospital and some paints and coloring paper.  "That's it," she said.  Santa told her that she would have to be a good girl until Christmas and if she was he would do his best...

Later that day, I decided to go online to get some of this shopping nonsense out of the way.  I checked the big 3 toy retailers (Target, Wal-Mart and ToysRUs) and no one carried either the school house or the hospital.  Then I went to the Playmobil website and found out why.  THOSE SETS COST OVER $150 EACH.  This was going to be a problem.  This year, money being pretty tight and all, $150 was the entire budget for Lila's Christmas toys.  With the Unicorn Pillow Pet being the main event, that was not going to be a problem.  There HAD to be some other toy hospital set or school house I could get her somewhere, right?

I tried to talk with her and told her that the elves didn't make enough of those toys this year and that I didn't know if Santa was going to be able to bring her those.  She began to CRY and asked if she was being naughty (???!!!!)  WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!

My imaginary mean response would have been "Remember how the other day I told told you it was time to clean up your toys and you threw a fit?  Yeah, well Santa saw that and said a kid who acts like that is only getting a lump of coal."  But that isn't the response.  Instead I sit here feeling like my kid is going to be let down on Christmas because I really cannot afford to give her the things she wants. 

It occurred to me that perhaps paying in advance for the several years of therapy she is going to need because of all the times I have failed her as a mother isn't the worst idea.  She wouldn't really get it now, but I guarantee, when she turns 20 and doesn't have health insurance and realizes that she's turning into her crazy mother, she'll be grateful I thought ahead. 

Sleep envy

The other day I walked into the grocery store and saw a toddler knocked out sleeping in one of those plastic-car-on-front-of-cart things while the mother happily shoved her reciept into her purse and smiled on her way out the door.  I am still extremely envious of parents whose children sleep when they're tired.  My fucking kid still battles it every single night. 

Wow...This Kind of Sucks!

I have made some changes to BecauseMotherhoodSucks.  I added topical "labels" to each post and have them listed along the right hand side of the home page.  This only took me about 2 hours and so now I am too tired to post a new thrilling tale of how being a mother is again pissing me off.

But please, feel free to look at my topics and read posts that may be of interest.  If you want to be totally terrified, read my Post Partum Depression Diary.  Jesus Christ, I have no idea who that crazy lady was, but no one should have given her a kid. 

Selena

Awesome Relationship Advice from Non-Moms

I have said on numerous occasions that before I had Lila, I pretty much knew EVERYTHING there was to know about being the perfect parent.  No way would my kid refuse to go to bed or talk back to me!  Straight out of the womb they'd understand that there is a way we do things and they would adhere to that set of rules because they would KNOW the consequences. 

Well, this is total bullshit.  Ann you quickly realize that this being that you have brought forth from your loins is not actually a dog to be broken and trained but is actually a person with likes, dislikes, a will and a really super cute pouty face that you adore so much that you would do just about anything to never see that face sad.

The same was true before I had Lila when considering how I would act in any given love relationship with the father of my kid(s).  There were plenty of things I would NEVER put up with.  Joblessness? Leaving dirty socks all over the house? Snapping at me because of something totally unrelated?  Fuck that shit.  I would NEVER tolerate that kind of behavior.  Not to mention that it would never happen because I'll be damned if I am going to be with some broke-ass slob with a temper. 

But you know what they say about the best laid plans?  Yeah...well shit happens. 

Quick Background:

My relationship with Lila's father isn't thrilling.  In fact, lately it's almost excruciating.  Ever since having Lila we have had a tough time financially.  Not because of her but because he is in construction and when the housing market collapsed so did his business.  There has been a lot of stress and strain on our relationship because of this and we have seen setback after setback trying to get back on track.  I handle stress by wanting to be alone and he handles it by stuffing his frustration and basically believing that he's unhappy because of me.  I in turn get stressed because I feel like he is blaming me unjustly and he gets more frustrated because I just don't get what hes stressed about and it keeps growing.

Getting to the Point:

We don't really fight.  We like each other over all.  But day to day life has intruded in such a way that literally weeks will go by and suddenly I will realize we haven't kissed since last month.  I was talking to one of my single friends about this and  he gave me this advice:

"Children learn what they live.  If you two aren't happy together you should separate because it is better to have two happy parents apart than to have two miserable parents together.  You're just depriving yourselves of true love and happiness elsewhere and children adjust."  (This coming from a person whose parents stayed together until he was in his 20s and has never been married or had children.) 

I am paraphrasing of course, but this brings me to the simple logic of life without children.  The above advice makes total sense when you look at it on the surface.  Before I had Lila, if I wasn't head over heels in love I totally would have felt deprived.  I would have felt like something better was obviously around the corner and I would have known that I would be fine if I packed my shit and moved out.

But it isn't as simple with a family as it is with a couple.  Because as much as I am NOT head over heels for HIM, per se, I LOVE our family.  I love to watch Lila and Daddy playing and I love to go to the zoo or the beach or to dinner as a family.  I love our house and love playing CandyLand with the two of them. 

For much of my youth I assumed that "LOVE" and the chasing of what my friends and I called "the spark" was what life was all about.  This lasted when I became "WE" and it was just Ben and I.  And there were plenty of moments where I kind of felt that "spark" wavering and assumed it was only a matter of time before I'd have to be moving on.  All that changed when we became a family.   Suddenly I understood that this spark would certainly end up smoldering.  The intense would eventually become so-so, and that although plenty of people believe that without that fierce desire and passion in a relationship that it is doomed (as evidenced by ever-rising divorce rates), I started to believe that there was something far more important to me: COMMITMENT.

Ben and I are not married.  But at some point (around the time I decided I would have a kid with him) I decided that this was the life I was choosing.  I decided that for as long as my child exists, I would be bound to him by her.  Obviously, there are things that would negate this decision.  For example, if he ever hit me or did anything to hurt Lila or me, or went to prison or buried body parts of hookers in the basement then I would certainly have my own permission to walk away.  But in forming a family, I decided that there was "greater good" that I was now a part of in this unit, and that my individual happiness comes second to that.

There have recently been some instances that have made me question whether we even LIKE each other anymore.  And when I sat down to try to consider my options, I couldn't just think about the practical stuff (I would have to leave my house because its in his name; the car's in his name; I would have to stay with my parents who are pretty heavy smokers; I would want Lila to have the comfort of her house but I would want to keep her with me).  I had to consider the toll that this move would take on 3 people, individually and as a group.  Lila would miss one of us every day.  I am the parent who takes care of her when she's sick and does the day to day stuff like baths and medicine.  He is the parent who has fun and does fun stuff.  I am the one who sets the rules. He is the one who is more laid back.  One of us would always miss that first trip to the ocean or getting the Christmas tree or watching the Wizard of Oz together on the couch with popcorn.  We wouldn't do those things together anymore and each of us would be deprived of that wonderful occasion.

But what happens when you feel like you just don't care anymore  What happens when the sight of this person makes you want to slap him?  What do you do when you realize that if you have to listen to one more fucking Dave Matthews song blaring from the basement that you are going to burn the house down? 

To be honest, I simply have to try not to think about it.  Self help gurus and armchair clinical psychology has told us for a few decades now that our individual happiness is our inalienable right.  We are told that if we do not pursue our own self-fulfillment then the people around us will suffer.  And on some level, I know that to be true.  But isn't there something to be said for sticking it out because it's the right thing to do?  If no one is really suffering and in fact, you believe that the benefits to your child outweigh the detriment then don't you sort of HAVE to live up to the commitment you made?  Not too many years ago, when society was considered much more civilized, people generally felt that loyalty and commitment were what made men great.  Selfishness was abhored and altruism was an essential value to society.  Many of our kids now don't even know what altruism is.

I don't want to be miserable in a relationship that I don't want.  And I don't want to inflict that misery upon Lila.  I have no idea what the fate of our relationship will ultimately be.  But the decision to split is simply not just a matter of what will make me happy.  It is a matter of voiding the existence of a family.  I don't think that decision can be made just by looking at what the obvious answer would be.  And I don't think it is something that should be done without really weighing all the options.

Searching for fun Christmas mommy stuff.

This will be my kid next year.  We're broke.