Aftermirth

Remember when brushing your teeth was an activity that was uninterrupted and virtually unnoticed by any other person in your house?  Remember when you used to be able to pour yourself a glass of milk without having to ‘take turns’ with someone else?

These are simple pleasures of a bygone era, and I now cherish my wonderful memories of these mundane and solitary tasks.  You know why?

Because having a toddler means those boring business-of-life moments are now a shared and often excruciatingly painful experience.  There is now a tiny person near you at all times who wants to do everything you want to do.  Even if their tiny little hands and arms don’t have the fine motor skills and strength to do it without making a complete and total mess everywhere.

Exhibit A:

Chris decided to go for a run at around 7.15 tonight (alone).  Ruby saw that he had changed into his running clothes and began to protest: MY BYE-BYE. MY RUNNING.

Chris, being the amazing guy he is, offered to go on his run pushing Ruby in her mountain buggy.  She put on her shoes (which she hates wearing), then promptly removed them (see, I told you).  She then decided she absolutely had to wear her winter jacket to go outside in 30C/85F degree weather.

At this point Chris changes back into his normal clothes because a run is most certainly out of the question now, as any suggestion to Ruby of getting in the buggy are met with an aggressive hand-wave and a resounding NO.

By now it’s 7.45, and with her bedtime approaching, Chris decides to take her on a short walk.  She accepts this new plan and decides to bring her new scooter.  She insists on taking her ball (which is impossible to carry while riding the scooter).  After some convincing she ditches the ball, then insists on bringing her Dorothy the Dinosaur doll (same dilemma as the ball).

She then brings me my gumboots and tries to get me to put them on, despite explaining a million times that I’m not actually going anywhere.

Finally, after some pleading, she goes out the door with scooter (only!) AND her shoes on.

A small leap for Ruby, one giant leap for my sanity.

She even has to stare at the computer exactly like I do!

For any parent who tries to convince you that life after having a child ‘isn’t that different’ to life before, they are dirty, filthy liars. Here is one tiny illustration of why those people are completely delusional (and perhaps drunk):

Breakfast before Ruby:

I retrieve bowl and spoon, fill bowl with cereal, sit down and eat it.

Breakfast after Ruby:

Ruby demands ‘grown up’ bowl and spoon. I retrieve it for her and put it on the table. She insists that I eat cereal too, which I don’t want. She then squeals unbearably until I give in and retrieve a bowl and spoon for myself. I pour the cereal and milk for both of us. We both sit down. She takes one bite of her cereal before deciding she wants to switch the bowls and eat from mine instead. She has a few bites from my bowl, as I finish off the tiny bit she had in her bowl. She notices her bowl (my new bowl) is empty and angrily screams her head off like a bad actress in an overacted slasher movie. I try to calm her down and explain that the cereal is gone because she gave it to me to eat. She then tries to pry whatever food is left in my mouth out into her hand.

 


Don’t let the cuteness fool you. They’re designed to look cute right before they unleash their wrath.

Last Saturday Ruby and I were scheduled to fly back to Wellington to catch up with friends.  I was so excited (and I just couldn’t hide it).  However, looks like this time the joke was on me.  There would be no flight and no trip to Wellington.  Because I communicate best in lists, here’s what happened:

Things that went terribly wrong:

• Ruby vomitted 5 times the night before the flight
• After taking the train (20 min) to the bus (20 min) to the airport through check in (10 min) through the departure lounge (30 min) through security (20 min) to the gate, the flight was delayed… and delayed… and delayed
• The flight was cancelled (3 hours after the original time of departure: 9.30am)
• We were transferred to another flight that would only take us to Auckland, which meant transferring to yet another plane to get to Wellington
• While in line to board the new flight, Ruby pukes all over me
• Everyone stares at me and no one offers to help
• I have a mental breakdown in the bathroom while I wash the puke out of my clothes
• I decide we’re not flying, then go home where Chris looks green with illness
• I wake up the next morning and vomit, then spend the rest of the day in bed, immovable

Things that somehow went wonderfully right:

• During the mental breakdown, a nice gentlemen came over to make sure we were alright
• Our luggage wasn’t lost or sent to NZ without us
• The Qantas employee who personally escorted us out of the airport was very, very nice and helpful
• Air New Zealand waived all service fees when I re-booked our flights
• I survived

The day was so full of failure, I couldn’t help but learn a few things:

• Take an extra set of clothes in your carry-on bag for both your pukey child and yourself
• I will always offer to help another parent experiencing a similar crisis
• Forget the car seat and hire one at your destination
• If your child vomits five times the night before a long day of flying, don’t assume it’s a random one-off event even if she appears full recovered and happy as Larry the next morning

If you want to see the tragedy unfold in real-time via my twitter updates, check it out on Storify.

This morning Ruby wheeled her buggy out into the living room, and when she encountered a bit of trouble maneuvering it, she mumbled, ‘Oh dammit’.  Then louder, ‘OH DAMMIT!’.

I reckon it’s going to be more difficult changing ‘shit’ to ‘shivers’ and ‘damn’ to ‘darn’ than it was giving birth.  I wouldn’t say I love swearing, but sometimes it’s the perfect word to use at the worst possible moment.

What am I going to say the next time I accidentally spill coffee down my shirt, or nearly get hit by an idiot driver while I ride my bike to work?  What words can I possible use to yell at the tv while watching Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo that truly conveys my mixed emotions of disbelief, disgust and extreme pleasure?!

This is that defining moment in every parent’s life when they have to dam up the mighty river of free flowing curse words.

Dammit, indeed!

If you’re a parent with a blog who has managed to keep up regular posting while their child is a toddler, I would say I envy you.  But I don’t.  I think you’re either (1) crazy (2) on crack or (3) both.

I’ve spent the last four months since my last post deprived of sleep and energy and in complete shock at the rate at which my darling child has grown and developed.  The exhaustion and shock were so profound that I completely forgot about this blog.  Does that also mean I’ve forgotten about all of you, my wonderful readers?  Yep.  It was that bad.

So here’s what we’ve been up to:

Ruby hones her personal sense of style.

I get overly excited when Ruby finally falls asleep

Chris and Ruby find common ground in their love of box forts

Ruby tackles a winter cold

Ruby fuels her addiction to reading

Ruby discovers her very own bouncy castle

I perused a local toystore catalogue today. It’s not something I usually do. I can’t imagine buying brand new toys for Ruby when there are millions of perfectly good, gently used toys waiting in OpShops to be re-homed with a child who has no clue they were pre-owned.

Ruby’s not a typical kid when it comes to toys.  Her toybox is full of odd secondhand toys I couldn’t resist.  A prime example:

A five-fingered hand-puppet thing. A real time-saver for people who can't be fussed with individual finger puppets.

She doesn’t even have a babydoll, unless you count a bald babydoll head on a stick wand my friend Jim made that I used a segment about motherhood in my other friend Jen’s comedy show, “How’s Wife?”.

Sinead O'Connor, eat your heart out!

So as I thumbed through this catalogue full of plastic junk fresh off the boat from China, I was shocked (and delighted) by the ludicrosity of the toys I found. They were so ridiculous that I had to invent the word ludicrosity to accurately describe them.

By the time I turned the last page of the catalogue, I was so overwhelmed with fear that Ruby may someday demand one of these toys that I immediately burned it. Fear not, dear Reader, I scanned a few of these gems first:

Who says you can't buy friends! Btw, you should totes buy Stephanie's convertible. It's 'cool'!

We work so hard to convince our children to bathe on a regular basis, and then we buy them toys that glorify trash. Where are the 'Recyclies' or 'Composties' that glorify sustainable living? Walter the Worm, Beer Bottle Betty, Newspaper Ned?

The loneliness of a puppet best friend and the comfort of a Snuggie. I sense a future career as a Spinster Ventriloquist. Someone should buy her some friends(tm).

You can't honestly expect me to believe Barbie would actually wash her puppies herself and not take them to an elite Boutique Puppy Spa. Also, I wouldn't recommend hugging and washing puppies at the same time.

Tell me who DOESN'T need a tiny bottle-fed pig in a teacup. No one, that's who!

Don't buy these. They're plain stuffed animals which makes them incredibly boring and pitiful.

It’s impossible for me to communicate to you how much I love Ruby. My brain can’t even begin to compute the sheer volume of her amazingness. Every day I wake up in absolute wonderment that this tiny beautiful creature is in my life.

But sometimes she drives me totally nuts.

She takes great pleasure in taking her bottle and pushing the nipple on the floor until milk/water/juice freely flows onto the floor. Yeah yeah, I know what you’re thinking: She’s so clever to have figured out how to do that! Einstein was a genius, but I bet you a million bucks he drove his mother bonkers with all that intelligence.

She also has a very loose attitude towards swallowing her food. She is notorious for chewing a few bites then for some (completely unknown) reason she spits it out. She doesn’t find a plate or bowl to spit it in. She doesn’t suck it up and swallow it anyway. She doesn’t even warn me she’s about to do it. After swallowing bite after bite of something, she’ll suddenly, mid-chew, expel it from her mouth. Why Ruby? WHY?

To even things out, I need to offset this whinging blogpost with an adorable photo. Here it is.