Ouch

I don't wanna be a mother today. I'm over it. I'm bored making food that doesn't get eaten and I'm bored of needing to be touched every three minutes. I'm bored of hoping for an extra long nap and getting an extra short one instead. So I've done what every sensible, mature person would do: I've shut the door on myself and the dependents and I'm wallowing on the computer. I can hear Anna having a little whinge but I can also hear the toys clanging and clunking as she plays, or throws them around in frustration, so I know she's still breathing. Bud is sulking because I got annoyed at him today: one two many whines from him pushed me over the edge, somewhat. (I'm sorry it's pissing it down outside, Bud, but I can't do anything about it. It's horrible out there and I'm not going out. You, on the other hand, are more than welcome to go out, but I'm not standing here holding the bloody door open for hours and I'm not going out with you. I'll melt.)

In the good bad old days, this would be the time that I'd drag my arse off down to the shops for a tub of lardy guts triple choc heart by-pass ice cream, without even bothering to get out of slippers, then I'd eat the whole lot in front of Oprah or Judge Judy and flake out feeling sick all afternoon. Now I have to pretend that I am a responsible adult and, ye gods, it's only 3pm so I have a whole afternoon to fill with something interesting before I can legitimately expect Anna to go to sleep again.

This wasn't what I expected of motherhood. Why am I counting the hours to sleep time? Why am I not enjoying every single moment of wake time? When did I turn into such a drudge?

This is what happened yesterday:

There we were, having a nice civilised coffee and games afternoon at The Moon Café, when Anna BIT ME. Not while feeding or anything (holy crap that would have made me sing) but, almost as bad, right on the fleshy part of my arm. With the full force of her sharp new little teeth. With no provocation at all. It bloody hurt. And it even left a most impressive bruise which I showed to everyone and we all agreed that she should be immediately flogged and sent down the mines cuddled and comforted greatly because she was S-C-R-E-A-M-I-N-G, owing to the fact that I had shouted, at her, for the first time ever in her life.

(Actually, that's a lie. In order to present a realistic version of motherhood and not participate in the grossly unfair myth of new parenting being all fluffy and loving, all the time, I will hereby admit that I have shouted at Anna on two other occasions. Both were when she was a lot younger (before three months, sadly) and were at that time in her life when she would often cry, loudly, for a couple of hours at a time. I shouted 'Shut up! What's wrong with you!' or something equally helpful, then took myself off outside to water the garden for some time out. Crying myself at the utter wretchedness of my whole life. Naturally I am not especially proud of these episodes, however I know that they are very, very common in stressed out new parents, and I know that as long as no physical harm occurs, the babies do not suffer any long term trauma at all. Even if they don't obviously help with the crying, I doubt they even rate much of a mention on the short term trauma scale either. If more of us would admit to these less than perfect parenting moments, more of us would not feel the ridiculous pressure to become perfect parents).

Anyway, yesterday I was a lot more specific. I yelled 'Owww! Don't do that!' (which earned me A Look from everyone in the room), and then the wailing began. The poor little bugger, it really shook her up a bit. On the flip side, though, I'm hoping it was a big enough shock that she won't do it again, and there are harder lessons she's going to have to learn.

We all decided that I should take a photo of the teensy teeth-mark bruise and post it to this blog, in order that I can have some leverage over Anna in the future. Unfortunately, I should have taken the photo there and then, as by the time I'd got home the bruise had gone. She's been reading up on her Torturers' Manual, the chapter on Leave No Discriminating Marks.