Why Some Animals Eat Their Young

Last night was one of those times when I just wanted to run screaming from motherhood.

I picked up the kid at daycare. Within about five minutes of getting him home, I was already beginning to go a little crazy. He's got a couple of "talking" toys that are very loud, and he loves nothing better than wandering all over the apartment pressing their play buttons. Oh, wait - there is one thing he loves better than that, and that is being loud and silly. He says nonsense words in a grating voice, and he does this often. That may not sound like a big deal to you. Try this exercise: ask someone to say to you, over and over again, while sitting right next to you, "You know what? You know WHAT? You know WHAT? NOTHING!!! Hahahahahaha! UUUUUUUHHHHH! UUUUUUUUUUHHHHHH!" And see how long it takes before you have to restrain yourself from beating him or her over the head with whatever is handy.

I took him out to Target to pick up a couple of things for his daycare and some yoga pants for me. To his credit, he actually stopped the annoying loud silly talk, but he kept up a steady stream of chatter and questions, grabbing at various items on the shelves, and repeatedly poking me in the butt with the dressing room number tag while I was trying on the yoga pants, so that I came close, a couple of times, to simply leaving him in the cart and walking away.

I always wonder how I appear to others at these times. Sometimes, it is all I can do while in the moment not to burst into hysterical laughter at the imagined sight of myself (lips grimly pressed together, nostrils flaring, curls tossing, as I stomp along, pushing the cart) and him (a beautiful, even angelic child, sitting in the cart, rocking his body from side to side, singing a tuneless chanting song designed to make me go utterly insane, and then, just when I've decided that one of us must die, he says sweetly, "Mommy, can I have a huggy?"). I do occasionally catch a smile or even the sympathetic eyes of other shoppers, but only if I don't express my frustration. If I speak sharply to him, forget it - I am a horrible parent, and they won't meet my eyes.

I managed to get him in the car, at which point he immediately went into full-blown, out-of-control, tired kid mode (in this case, that meant loud singsong silliness).
So I started driving. I jammed the ear buds of my iRiver (which I always carry with me for just such an emergency) so far into my ears that my eyes started to hurt, cranked up the sound, and listened desperately to The White Stripes' "Blue Orchid" and Death Cab for Cutie's "Soul Meets Body," over and over on an endless loop. Meanwhile, the kid sang "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" over and over on an endless loop of his own.

For an hour.

After which he still was not asleep.

There is no end to this story because, unfortunately, there is no end to this scenario.