Moms of young infants should not drive.

 

My latest mail looks like this:

 

Red means stop.  I know this, I promise you.  This is also my first moving violation ever, in my entire life.  The only thing I have to say for myself is that I wasn’t paying attention – which probably is not a good thing to admit when I was operating a 4500 lb moving vehicle.  I can just see my court date now:

***

JUDGE:  Are you aware that you made a left turn on red?

ME:  Yes… I am now.

JUDGE:  You don’t deny it?

ME:  No, it’s too much work.

JUDGE:  What do you have to say for yourself?

ME:  I was sleepy.

JUDGE:  Maybe you shouldn’t drive when you are so sleepy.

ME:  Then I wouldn’t be here today, sir.

JUDGE:  Were you sleeping at the wheel?

ME:  No.  But I was groggy… delirious, really.  The infant… with the just getting over colic… no sleep… four months of no sleep… the preschooler… always with the waking at the 5 am… the pee pee… the pee pee in the bed and the waking up… and the nursing… nursing all the time… my boobs are -

JUDGE:  I get it, you were tired.

ME:  And distracted.

JUDGE:  Distracted?  What were you doing?

ME:  Singing Where Is Thumbkin.

JUDGE:  I’m afraid I’ll have to throw the book at you.

ME:  I’m afraid I won’t catch it.

***

This doesn’t look good for me, friends.  Sure, I thought about just denying it altogether, but those damn traffic cameras…

"Where is Thumbkin? Where is Thumbkin? Here I am. Here I am."

It’s settled.  I need a chauffer.

Best 15 minutes in a long time.

I sat there in my parked car in the garage for a few minutes.  There was no three year old asking endless questions.  There was no wailing baby in the backseat.  There was no husband grilling me on which way was North, which way was South, and how much of the monthly budget money I had left.

It felt odd, like someone had taken away my appendages.  There was nobody.  There was nothing.  I sat there and thought my own thoughts… thoughts that haven’t had the space to exist in so so long.

Then I took a deep breath, put the key in the ignition, and pulled out of the driveway.

I rolled down the window.

I turned up the radio in an attempt to squeeze out the theme song to The Wonder Pets that was slowly creeping into my brain.

I giggled.

Then I felt it…

that feeling…

freedom.

A Pat Benatar song came on the radio, and even though I couldn’t for the life of me remember the words, it was the best song ever.

I sung at the top of my lungs.

We belong to the light, we belong to the thunder.

Weeee belong to the sound of the words

we’ve both fallen under.

Whatever hmm feeny hm hmm for bum bum bum better.

WE BELONG, WE BELONG, WE BELONG TOGETHER!

My foot pressed a little heavier on the gas.

I ran my fingers through my hair as I sang – pretending I was in a music video.

Maybe hmph a hm na na na when la la hmph a to SAY.

Maybe hm hmmm hmmm … na na… fum fum… AY.

It was the best ride I had had in ages.

Part of me wanted to drive to nowhere.

Part of me wanted to throw a dart at a map.

But I didn’t.

I sang.

I had a concert.

I was a caged bird who had escaped…

and my destination was the Trader Joe’s parking lot to buy groceries.

 

 

Best

drive

ever.

 

This colic too shall pass…

We’ve just passed the four month mark.

It’s as if the Gods smiled down on us and said “Let the colic pass.”

Knock on wood.

The biggest piece of wood I can find…

Like a Sequoia.

 

 

Hello Depression. 1, 2, 3, down they go.

The clock struck midnight and we didn’t even know it.

A new year was starting as we stood, teary-eyed and paralyzed.

He said he would leave me if I didn’t get help.

For a moment, I didn’t care either way.

***

The darkness had become too much.

The anxiety…

The rage…

I blamed him.

I blamed my family.

The family that needed more than I had.

I blamed a traumatic birth.

I blamed being split in two.

I blamed circumstance.

I blamed my baby…

The baby that needed to be held 20 hours a day.

The baby that screamed endlessly.

The baby that made me cry…

made me scream…

made me smile…

made me ill with life.

I blamed myself.

***

The word “depression” was hard to find…

clouded by actual, real life hardships.

“It’s not me.  Anyone would think this all sucked.”

Was it my outlook or was it all the crap life was throwing at me?

Did it matter?

***

It all felt wrong.

I didn’t belong here.

I took a wrong turn.

These thoughts were unwanted.

This life was not mine.

***

I felt myself failing.

Failing at the public “happy face”.

Failing as a wife.

Failing as a mother.

Failing to live.

I was too exhausted to tread water.

***

And now…

1, 2, 3, down they go…

Every day they travel to my brain.

The black and grey are slowly lifting…

I breathe…

and I fight.

I fight.

I fight every day…

the feeling of not having been good enough on my own.

 

 

 

Shopping Cart Roller Derby

I white knuckled the handle.  He could tell I was slowing down.  I knew he could sense it. The anxiety was making me sweat.  I wanted desperately to speed up.  My internal speedometer told me I was going about 4 miles an hour… not good enough… I had to pick it up to 5 or all hell would break loose.

Five miles an hour may not sound very fast to you.

It’s not fast for the highway.

It’s not fast even for a residential street.

But it’s ridiculously speedy for the local grocery store.  You can’t even read labels at that speed.

At this point in my life, a newborn with colic had turned my life into a dark and desperate farce.  Colic demanded to be in motion.  Colic had me bouncing and swaying at all hours of the night.  Colic had me making unnecessary right hand turns on the road, so as not to have to stop at a red light.  Colic also made me a speed demon with a grocery cart.

“Excuse me”, I said semi-politely to the old woman in front of me as I tried to shimmy my cart in front of her.  I felt her give the evil eye to the back of my head as I quickly jogged my cart down the aisle.

I glanced down at the infant car seat in my cart, and saw the left foot stop it’s twitch.

*sigh*

That old woman had no idea that I just saved her, and the whole damn store, from the High Pitch Baby Wails Of Doom.  The colic can scream.  The colic scream hits a special spot in the brain of anyone that hears it.  It can paralyze you.  It can make you see spots, drop to your knees, raise your hands, and yell “Oh my fucking Gawd! Make it stop!”.

I saved that bitch’s life.

Damn.  I also realized as I left her in the dust, that I also passed the granola bars and forgot to grab some.

Continuing my jog, I looked into the car seat and saw the left leg starting to twitch again.  My heavy breathing was telling me that I was still at 5 miles per hour, but maybe that wasn’t good enough any more.  It had been fifteen minutes of jogging up and down the aisles… maybe the colic had been complacent long enough.  It needed more motion.  More.  More!

So I started to run.

I ran through the dairy, and without slowing, whacked at a carton of non-dairy creamer hoping it would fall into my cart.  Then I turned and circled back toward the granola bars.

I began to turn down the cereal aisle, but when I saw how packed it was, I veered to the frozen aisle.  It was just as crowded.  I glanced again at the little twitching foot, and now BOTH were moving.

*shit*

I pointed myself down that aisle and started hoofing it.

“Excuse me. Pardon me.  Sorry.”

I dodged.  I scooted.  I bumped.  I probably, maybe ran over a toe.

I finally made it to the granola bars again, and the little old lady was STILL THERE.

She was standing right in front of the Nature Valley Oat n’ Honey granola bars.

These granola bars were essential to Bam Bam’s existence.

I was desperate…

and determined…

I glanced at the hands gripping my cart and revved them…

I took a deep breathe…

and I willed my sleep deprived feet into a sprint…

and as I approached the lady and the granola…

I bent my legs into a lunge…

lept into the air, grand jete-style…

reached up over the old woman’s head…

and knocked a box of granola bars off the shelf and onto the floor, where it slid halfway down the aisle.

I continued my run, and scooped up the box along the way.  I caught the eye of a surprised man heading our way.  I smiled, and mumbled, “In a hurry”.

I paused for just a millisecond to mentally bookmark the moment, and make sure that this was in fact my life.  Then I hightailed it to the self checkout where I rock and rolled my cart and even did a couple little circles with it while scanning.

Crisis averted.

Granola acquired.

*****

For some of you, grocery shopping may seem boring.  For some it’s just a chore.

But for others of us, it’s unbelievably tense…

it’s action packed…

and it’s dangerous.

It’s a shopping cart roller derby…

and it’s coming to a supermarket near you…

because, let’s face it – I don’t think they will let me into the same store more than once.