thank god it’s monday

24Jul07

Monday morning, torrential downpours.

My gallant husband dropped me off in the pouring rain five feet from the subway entrance.

Wow, I am a goood husband.

You’re not getting a blowjob.

Wait, not even tonight when we’re snug as a bug in a rug? Not even a little tug?

*******

We’re good together when it’s just the two of us. We can both be children. This was an unexpected treat getting dropped off by the mister, but not because I was spared soggy hems. Found time is the only time that we remember to be ourselves these days.

After a weekend of hard labor upstate, we’re exhausted. It was almost a surprise to find that we’re good enough friends with our hosts that they didn’t think twice about taking our car three times to run errands right before their daughter’s birthday party.

Max didn’t let anyone in the house sleep the night before, so maybe it was guilt that got the mister through the pre-party setup where he found himself good-friend hauling rocks to pitch tents for the party, and then cases of water and soda to put in the ice buckets. Instead of being allowed to nap, he was politely coerced into making hamburger patties and then obliged a good-friend “request” to halve the patties to remake them more to the liking of ze host. I had a toddler stuck to my left side and was useless except as a teradactyl whisperer.

Feeling guilty for keeping the entire household awake most of the night wasn’t going to replenish their lost sleep or ours.

Everyone was on edge despite the good-friend smiles.

*******

Max had just finished his bottle. The mister kissed him goodnight and left me to finish putting him to bed. We were high up, much higher than on our bed at home. I asked the mister to leave the door open a crack so I could find my way in the unfamiliar room to the pack-and-play after Max fell asleep.

The sliver of white hot light against the pitch black of the room widened as the door creaked back open. Voices floated up from downstairs as the adults settled into the child-free portion of the evening. Max perked up and stopped drinking to listen to the sound of our friends murmuring and laughing.

In the bright wide ribbon of the half open doorway, the mister’s black silhouette made Max wiggle and spasm with joy at the prospect of some extended play time with daddy. I couldn’t see anything as he tumbled off the bed. I only saw his falling shape pass that shaft of light right before he landed on his head and half extended arm.

Downstairs, the sound of running feet as they rushed to the bottom of the stair to see if Max was hurt. The noise of impact made a dramatic thud on the old wooden floorboards.

Horrified and still mentally frozen, I reached down forever to find my son and picked him up without thinking to check if he was okay first. He could have broken something for all I knew, but I couldn’t stop myself.

The mister’s face rushed towards me, terrified, accusatory.

Our exchange of words won’t be repeated here, but they hurt. My friend in the doorway, our host, discreetly disappeared.

The sound of Max’s screaming made my heart come to a shuddering halt. My throat was a giant lump. I heard myself panting, “you’re okay, you’re okay, are you okay?”

My husband, the love of my life, was my enemy for the briefest of moments. We struggled to keep from going insane with worry and fear for the five minutes that Max was howling, inconsolable. The mister tried to take him, desperate to comfort him, but Max’s legs were wound around my side like pincers.

I told my husband to turn on the light, turn on the ceiling fan, because I needed to calm down my hysterical son so I could see if he had broken something or smashed his skull in.

After the fan began to rotate, Max’s cries shut off abruptly like a switch was thrown. His tear streaked face was red and his breathing was still panicky. The mister’s eyes were wider than I’ve ever seen them, searching his son’s face and body for signs of real injury. Max looked back at him and laughed.

Thank God. Capital G.

He was okay, but spooked. After 30 seconds of calm and relief, he wailed as if he’d just fallen again. This time I wanted to turn myself into the parent police and confess that I wasn’t cut out for this. I don’t know what I’m doing.

You’ve heard that declaration before, I’m sure, from other parents, but I’m telling you the truth. I am a child who is now raising a child. My husband, a child, raising a child. We lashed out at each other, a thousand times more scared than our son who had just fallen onto his face from the dizzying height of three feet.

We’re not good at this right now. I keep telling myself that we’ll learn. I just don’t believe it yet.

After convincing myself that I felt little broken bones, cracking against each other in Max’s wrist, I almost agreed to take Max back to Brooklyn so we could get him to the ER, but I couldn’t get him to protest my gentle squeezes. I mushed his shoulder, his neck, his head. The only time he cried is when I threatened to put him down.

The rest of the night was a tense series of waking starts as Max would shift and tumble and kick our heads as he unconsciously punished his mother and father for not being good parents, for not being good to each other.

I thought of the talented telling of another rock and roll, on the road sleeper by Cry It Out. I never cosleep with Max, and had read CIO’s tale of woe with fascination and high pitched laughter, but not much empathy. Fucking hell. We couldn’t get Max to sleep in the pack-and-play, and then after taking forever to get him to fall asleep at all, I gave up any hope of brushing teeth and washing my face after he fell asleep on me. I went to bed in street clothes, afraid to move on the barely queen size mattress with the mister forming the other side of mad Max’s thunderdome.

*******

I lied at the party. Friends who I hadn’t seen for a while asked how everything was.

They’re great. Wonderful.

I mean, who wants to hear about the bitching and moaning of a child who’s raising a child?

Filed under: depressed, mad max, the mister, what the fuck am I doing   |  8 Comments