Big Vent

For the last week, I have been experiencing a persistent, low-grade frustration. Nothing major or life-changing has happened, for which I am grateful, but there has been a series of minor frustrations.

It is common knowledge that appliances tend to break in clusters. I don't know if this is really true, or if you just get more and more frustrated with each successive breakage, making multiple breakages stand out in your mind.

Anyway, last week was my week. Not only did the laptop go kaput, but the vacuum hose stopped sucking, and the GPS had been broken for several weeks. (Another debunking of the "things break in clusters" myth: a lot of times we tend to count things that have, in fact, broken long ago and are just still not fixed.)

And then there was the dishwasher. For some time, my husband has been at odds with the dishwasher. According to his mom, he has always been rather particular about the cleanliness of dishes, such that when he selects a dish, he will inspect a series of dishes and reject several for having miscellaneous spots on them. He determined that the source of the problem in our dishwasher was a large white blob of something at the bottom of the dishwasher, which he told Nathan was the mythical Mexican chupacabra. This actually became quite comical, because Bill bought Nathan a Scooby-Doo DVD about the chupacabra for his birthday, and when it came time to shop for a new dishwasher, Nathan told the salesperson, "We need a new dishwasher, because our dishwasher has a chupacabra in it."

Anyway, so on the day we bought our new fridge, we also got a new, space-age, non-chupacabra-having dishwasher, which was to be installed the following Tuesday (which was last Tuesday). When the day came, it turned out Sears' computer system had somehow malfunctioned, and our order was completely lost. Five frustrating days later, during which the chupacabra caught wind of his impending eradication and decided to render the dishwasher completely non-functional, we ended up going back to Sears and just re-buying the dishwasher. It's supposed to come tomorrow. And I blame the chupacabra for mobilizing the other appliances to break as well.

Bill went out of town Friday for his high school reunion. He asked if I could drive him to the airport. On the way, Nathan began whining that he was thirsty, and so I let him drink out of my plastic cup with a reusable straw (you know, the kinds they sell at Starbucks and the like?). When he gave it back, several sharp, jagged pieces were missing from the straw. Bill asked me to pull over so we could frantically search for the pieces. When we couldn't find them, we became paranoid that Nathan had swallowed one, so we took a detour to the nearest ER and went through a little adventure there. The doctors assured us we had nothing to worry about, and they took an x-ray to prove it. They discharged us and told us to look out for signs of abdominal distress, which were unlikely at that point. Also at that point, Bill had missed his flight and had to pay $200 to get a later one. But I still consider him the lucky one, because after that ordeal he got to get on a plane, relax, and enjoy a kid-free three-day weekend.

I don't know what it is about having Bill out of town that is so stressful for me. I'm used to him working late and having to do most of the housework/cooking/childcare on my own, which is the deal I signed up for when I decided to become a stay-at-home-mom. I'm used to getting up with Nathan in the morning and being up for several hours with him while Bill sleeps. And on many weekends I take Nathan alone to do things while Bill gets work done. Yet somehow the combination of never having another adult there really wears you out. You can never ask somebody else to give a bath or even just dry the kid off after the bath. There are no periods where the kid is off with his dad playing so you can make dinner. It's just all you, all the time.

My strategy with the weekend was to just spend the days completely wearing Nathan out, so I wouldn't have any problems at bedtime. Normally he takes a nap in the afternoon and then we stay up a little later because I have the gym and we eat late to accommodate Bill's late afternoon classes. But for this weekend, I didn't want to have Nathan wake up around 5 p.m. from a nap, then be tasked with the challenge of having to wear him out in the evenings. Better to just forgo the nap and power through the day.

So on Saturday we: went to the gym, went to the little league opening day parade, ran a few errands, went back to Sears to buy the dishwasher, ran around a lot at the mall playground outside of the Sears, and then rode in the little cars at the mall that you put quarters in. And then we got home and it was still just me and this kid, and I had to make dinner, force him to eat his dinner, and then get him ready for bed.

And then he still wouldn't sleep in his bed and ended up in mine. Where his diaper leaked. A lot.

Sunday I decided to opt for one big outing instead of several little ones. I found this super fun children's museum in Indiana, just 25 minutes away. They had your standard water table and train table, plus the little make-believe dress-up village with the toy kitchen and grocery store. And, adorably, they have a little cooking class where they show the kids how to make something, and then they eat it. They made ants on a log, which is usually made with celery, peanut butter, and raisins, but they are a peanut-free facility so they substituted cream cheese for peanut butter. And speaking of food, they have a fairly decent snack bar with pizza they make there. Plus they have a big ball pit and a giant padded play structure, making it sort of a combination museum/Chuck E. Cheese/McDonald's playland. We stayed until the place closed.

And then we went home. And I still had to deal with this kid, dinner, and bedtime. And exhausted as he was, he still found the energy to carry on in his bed for two hours until I gave up and once again let him sleep in my bed. Which was actually pretty convenient because he developed a cold and was up several times in the middle of the night moaning, "I'm siiiiiiick."

So that's where we are today. I'm really tired of being alone with this kid, and now we're throwing in whiny and sick as well. I scrapped my plans to go to the gym because you aren't supposed to bring sick kids to the daycare, and plus even if I did it would have been difficult to motivate him to go.

Instead I just ordered pizza. With cheesy garlic bread. And baked mostaccioli.