In which I reveal way too much about myself.

It started with a text message. One pregnant Christina testing a non-pregnant Christina, the first Christina in an obvious, even for texting, snit because she was about to leave for the airport to go visit friends in Toronto, when she realized that a) her shirt was on inside out, and b) she had no passport. “What is this lentil getting her into?” She wrote. Lentil was the pre-birth name for her baby. It was either that or Nunzio Domenico DiZebba, or Annunziata Cannoli DiZebba.

In an attempt to calm her down I texted back: “It’s called prego brain,” I texted “It’s totally normal. The point is that you CAUGHT it. You didn’t actually get on the plane with your shirt inside out.” And to further comfort her so that she wouldn’t feel like a total incompetent, I texted again: “Did I tell you the story of when I locked myself out of our apartment with a five day old baby Ian inside? Or the time when I dropped him? At the doctor’s office? Or the time when I was pregnant and I had a meltdown because I couldn’t make a pie crust?” It went on for several more text exchanges. And so this idea was born...

Bad Mommy Stories. If you’re a mommy and you don’t have one, congratulations. You’re either perfect or lying. And my money’s on the latter.

Either way, enjoy the stories.



Lock Out.
We had just brought Ian home from the hospital three days prior and it was the first time that I was truly alone with him. Really alone. No one around at all. Just me. And him. It made me panic a little bit because I had never really been around babies before and we had recently killed several houseplants and an iguana. I stared at him sleeping in the bassinet thinking how am I going to do this? The “this” was keeping him safe and alive for the next 18 or so years. I had barely finished that thought when I decided to get the paper so I could rest while he rested.

The apartment’s front door was one of those old metal doors that automatically locked as it closes. I had gone out the front door to get the newspaper. I had to walk a bit farther than usual because the paperboy had bad aim. That’s when I heard it. Click. The door had shut. I had no key. And I forgot to push that little button on the door that unlocks the lock.

Now I’ve done it, I thought. Shit. Shit. Shit. I have screwed up really badly this time and it’s only day five. I stood in the same spot, frozen with panic. Sweat was dripping down my neck, most likely a combination of the hormones trying to work themselves back to normal and the 90-degree June weather. I stood there, thinking about my options and all the "What ifs" that could happen.

What if Ian woke up hungry? What if the cat sucked the life from him (I’m Italian and this is a classic Italian wives’ tale)? What if there was a fire? I had to get back in there and fast. I didn’t have time for a locksmith even if I could call one.

Okay, I thought. Maybe our neighbor, Megan who was a friend, had left her door open. She did that from time to time. If she or her husband Don were there, maybe they might let me in and not tell my husband, (who would think I was a complete idiot), and I could…. It came to me in a flash. Every apartment had a balcony overlooking Long Island Sound. I could jump from their balcony to ours. But, what if the sliding doors to our balcony were shut and locked? I couldn’t remember if I had left them unlocked or not. I didn’t care. I’d smash them, I thought. Now, the distance between balconies was maybe three feet. (It felt like three feet, I honestly can’t remember the EXACT distance) They were not connected at all, but stand alone balconies.

Three feet isn’t a lot except when you’re two stories up and you’ve just had an episiotomy. And you’re still not back to your normal size…

I knocked on Megan’s door. Her mom, who was visiting, answered. She was there alone. I pushed past her babbling something stupid about locks and balconies and rushed straight through their apartment to their balcony. I stepped out. I looked over. I was panting. I looked at our balcony. The doors were shut. Great. Don’t worry about it just get there… okay. Just do it. Okay. Don’t look down. I got up on the ledge, I eased myself up to a standing position and I did not look anywhere except at my goal. I held my breath and leapt over.
.

I made it. I was sweating and shaking but I made it. I went to the first set of sliding doors, the bedroom balcony doors. I peaked in; Ian was still sleeping peacefully. I tried to open the sliding doors. Nope. Locked. Of course they were. I had locked them to keep out baby-nappers who lurked everywhere now. You just couldn’t be too careful. I went to the living room balcony doors. I put my hand on the hot metal handle. I pushed it to the left; it gave way and I slid the door open. I wanted to cry. I was so relieved. I had made it back to my child.

I don’t think Megan’s mom ever told anyone, nor did I tell my now ex-husband. Until now.


Pushing the Errand Envelope.
Anna hated her car seat. I think most kids dislike their car seats because of the straps but Anna really truly despised hers. Anytime I had her strapped in it, I figured I had at the most, half an hour tops, to do all my errands. This meant in 30 minutes, with a 4 month old baby I had to grocery shop, pick up and drop off dry cleaning, pick Ian up at pre-school, and whatever other random errands that needed to be done on a weekly basis.
Needless to say, it was Errand Impossible. This forced me to pick and choose which errands to run on any particular day. My limit in 30 minutes was two. It was not physically possible to get more than three done in the suburbs in a giant SUV.

There was one day however, that I decided to go for it. I decided to push the envelope of suburban errand running. I had to get the dry cleaning so I went for it; whopping three errands: post office, dry cleaners, and bank. I figured if she started crying, I’d be home soon enough, and what the hell, it was only me who would hear her tortured cries coming from the back of the car. I could tough it out. Anna had the most piercingly loud cry, and truth be told, her decibel level even now is why the dogs in the neighborhood sometimes howl. At 11 we still remind her to “turn her volume button down.”

She started whimpering at the post office. Not too bad. Give her a binky I thought and boom, I could pop into the dry cleaners, drop off the pile and whip back into the car; the dry cleaning place looked deserted so we were able to zip in and zip out pretty painlessly. She was crying a bit harder now, her rhythmic high pitched wails were getting on my nerves, and she was red, blotchy, and she looked pretty annoyed, but I was determined to persevere (once Anna wants something, she is pretty tenacious. A trait we noticed later and hence has earned her the nickname, Annie the pit-bull).

We headed toward the bank- bad news; there was a line of cars waiting to use the outside drive thru teller. Crap. I was stuck in it too because two cars had pulled up behind me. I had no choice but to wait in the line. She was screaming pretty hard now. The red face up to crimson, the blotches spreading over her baldhead and neck. I was pissed off at myself for being so stupid as to think I could actually pull this three-errand marathon off. Who was I kidding? In what felt like hours but was more likely no more than ten minutes (which is a long time to listen to your child in distress), we finished at the bank and we were headed home.

I was concentrating on driving and trying not to get in an accident so I was white knuckling the wheel. I just wanted to get home, and comfort her. I didn’t want to speed, but I wanted to get home quickly. I think I didn’t even want to look at her because I didn’t want to get distracted and upset, and really, I thought to myself, she was perfectly safe in her seat, just in a snit and it would all be over soon.

As we got nearer to the house, her cries began to sort of muffle. I thought maybe she’s trying to comfort herself with her fist, or maybe she’s losing steam and will sleep for the rest of the afternoon.

We pulled into the driveway. I turned the car off. Got out. Ran around to her side of the backseat. I opened up the back door. I was mortified. Somehow, Anna had managed to scream and contort herself in a Houdini like maneuver where she was literally face down in the car seat. She wasn’t trying to comfort herself. She was pissed off. So pissed off that she somehow channeled her rage into a contortionist’s ability to slide her shoulders out from under the straps.

I picked her up. Studied her for any signs of distress. She looked at me with all the disdain her old soul held; a sort of matron grand dame looking her nose down at the peasant, “How very dare you” the look said.

I never did try to push the errand envelope again. Though she’s 11, almost 12 now, she’s not so great on long car rides. I can’t help but wonder if somewhere lurking in the back of her brain is the memory of that afternoon, where her cries were muffled by her balled up little fists against the backside of her car seat…and I can’t help but think, if that’s the case, I hope she never reads this because I’ll never hear the end of it


Anna Ready for Splash Down.
Anna was the kind of baby who was fine to sit in her car seat, as long as she was within eye shot earshot of you. And it wasn’t actually moving in the car.

She would sit in the car seat while I cooked dinner, while I fed Ian, while I did the laundry and while I folded the laundry. I’m not saying that’s all I put her in, she had play time on her back, and tummy time, but for the practical parts of the day, those parts where you need to get stuff done, the car seat was brilliant. The minute it got in the car, forget about it. You could actually see her anxiety level percolate.

On this particular day, I needed a shower. Badly. She had spit up all over me and I’m pretty sure that the neighbors thought that a) I actually preferred my clothes with big white splotches on the front and b) that I always smelled like cheese. We were going for a stroll down to the video store (which dates me pretty badly, because yes, I was using a VHS machine to watch Mystery Science Theatre 3000 and The Birdcage).

[As an aside, for some pop cultural references as to when I was raising my babies: Anna has grown up in a world without Princess Di, who left the earth, a month before Anna entered into it. And with my son, I was nursing him through such famous lines as “If the glove don’t fit you must acquit.” But enough about how elderly they are now. Me? I’m ageless). Anyway, This is back when Anna was six months, tops.]

Back to me and my hygiene needs. I put Anna in the bathroom with me, on the bathmat. She happily began to rock back and forth in the seat; it had that sort of curved bottom to it. I started the shower with that sort of senseless running dialogue that you do with babies, and which now, everyone does publicly on twitter or facebook. “I’m turning the hot water on now, Ouch, now I’m turning the cold on.” Really inane things, but strangely, they seemed to keep her quiet and calm.
I continued my verbal diarrhea from behind the shower curtain; “Mommy’s shampooing now, now mommy’s rinsing. Mommy’s conditioning. Mommy’s shaving her legs with a dull blade. Mommy’s trying to stop the bleeding.” That sort of thing.

I stepped out of the shower, and there she was like a little astronaut strapped into her capsule, but completely upside down. She must have rocked so hard that she tipped. She was there, quietly calmly looking at me, judging me. Anna has an old soul. She was born old and on that day, Her 40 year old inner woman was looking at me, inwardly tsking, shaking her head and saying “You really can’t do anything right can you?”