There were plenty of reasons I only wanted two kids: I would
never drive a minivan, like EVER; I want my family to fit at a 4-top table and
not need to wait for a booth and my doctor won’t prescribe more than 30 Ativan
in a month, and lord knows that would not be enough I if I had three kids. But mainly, the reason for my desire to have
only two kids was that I thought it made sense from a defensive
standpoint. Two kids and two parents
meant that we could play man on man defense.
I had told Matt this from the get-go and imagined that he
was on board for this plan too. Divide
and conquer. There were two of them and two of us. We were bigger, stronger and
smarter and if we worked as a team the job would be manageable.
In the beginning he
was game. “Sure, I’ll stay home with TIT while you take Commander to the
birthday party. It’s his naptime. I wouldn’t want the little guy to miss a nap,”
he said laden with saccharine kindness. So
while baby TIT slept blissfully in a swinging Mama-roo, Matt would read the Wall Street Journal and watch DVR
college wrestling while I climbed bounce houses to retrieve the Commander who
refused to leave even for cake and pizza. All that was required at that point,
was to flip him over occasionally and give him a bottle. Who even needed to
change a diaper? It’s not like his nose knew the sniff test like mine and
whether honestly or not, he denied ever smelling the stench of a dirty diaper
that filled every room of the apartment.
Matt opted to take take TIT as his man. Who would blame him,
the job was sedentary and required little more in the infant days than just
burping and feeding. And TIT was an easy
baby. But as TIT grew into the beast he is, Matt’s strategy of Man on Man
shifted to more of a Zone defense.
On a recent Saturday morning when both kids decided that it
was time to rise and shine long before the sun, Matt managed to sleep through
the caucophony of explosions that were occurring in the living room as TIT and
the Commander took turns catapulting themselves off the sofa. “I need Nilla. I’m thirsty. I am soo sooo
thirsty. I need it now,” the Commander whines just as TIT plows his Cozy Coupe
into the side of the dining room table and gets out to survey the damage. I avert my eyes from the Commander towards
TIT’s accident scene and the Commander goes haywire. “Mommy, Moommmmmmy. I am
talking to you. Did you hear me? I need Nilla. Nilla is my morning drink.
Mommmmmy, do you think Bobba Fett drinks Nilla. Mommmy, Mommmy?” TIT is crying
because he can’t reach the Commander’s Lego X-Wing fighter that I am pretty
sure he will either try to consume it or throw and destroy it. Either of those actions will send the
Commander into a mad tantrum, so I go and deal with TIT first which then sends
the Commander into tears because his immediate needs were not met with
immediate action. And my husband still
continues to sleep.
I save the X-Wing fighter from peril and move it to a high
shelf out of the reach of either child and think to myself that I may just be a
superhero mommy saving the day. But just as think “problem solved” as I step
off the chair and look at the X-Wing fighter that has lived to fight another
day, both kids lose their minds simultaneously. “Give me back my X-Wing
fighter. I need it! I need it.” The Commander is now trying to move other
pieces of furniture to climb up to the kitchen cabinet to go and retrieve
it. He’s balling his eyes out
uncontrollably. “You sunk,” he screams at me, his version of “you suck” but
somehow has gotten butchered, thankfully, into “You Sunk.”
I am about to go all good parent on his ungrateful ass, “Do
not talk to me like that,” I say. “I
need to save it from your brother before he breaks it. Mommy is helping you.” I
am attempting to explain this to him, that his X-Wing had to moved to a high up
place so that it wouldn’t be destroyed by the Dark Side aka his brother. He seems to weigh this in his mind and there
is a pause in the tears, long enough for TIT to scream at the top of his lungs
and make a run for his step stool which he carts around the apartment for
purposes just like this. The howl from
TIT reminds the Commander that he’s there and the Commander dashes over to
punch his brother and then pinch and twist his skin. Surprisingly, TIT doesn’t
cry. He briefly pauses and then resumes carrying his stool to the cabinet. He
can only reach high enough to get to the shelf with the sippy cups and kids’
utensils and not reach the X-Wing. TIT
realizes that his plan is flawed and failed, so in anger he tosses a bunch of
sippy cups and plastic bowls with monkey faces to the ground causing a huge
crash sound. And my husband still sleeps.
“He threw my bowl!” the Commander screams infuriated. He
hadn’t used these bowls which he condemned as “too babyish” in eons, but that
doesn’t diffuse his anger. He runs over
and whacks TIT again. I threaten time
out and he makes a run for our bedroom. “Daddddyyyy Dadddy, Daddddy!” the
Commander who alternates between tears and screams tries to engage my husband who
is still asleep…with ten pillows over his head to muffle the screams. “Daddy, Daddy. Wake up!! Zac is bothering me
and Mommy took my X-Wing fighter away. Can you get me Nilla? Nilla is my
morning drink and mommy won’t give it to me. I am so thirsty. Daddy, wake up.
WAKE UP!!!” My husband comes out of his cocoon, peeking his eyes up above the
covers and blinking sleep away. TIT charges the bed too and now both kids are
attacking him. I don’t try to save him because, really, I have been dealing
with this ALONE for nearly 2 hours now. “I need another five minutes,” he says
as both kids use his back as a trampoline and he retreats under the blankets
again. “I’ll watch them in here,” he offers.
So now the bedroom is his “zone”. He staked out this position a long time ago
and usually offers to defensively “cover” this area. Mistakenly, he thinks putting an episode of
Cailou on and burying himself in a cave of fluffy bedding is a good defensive
move. I allow him to foolishly remain in
this warped reality because I know what’s coming. “OK,” I say as I close the bedroom door leaving him with
two wild beasts on the loose, “You have both of them.” I leave and go pour
myself my eighth cup of coffee. It takes
only five minutes and I hear a crash and then, “CARRIE! CARRIE! HELP ME!!” I sip the coffee slowly. I don’t rush.
“What happened?” I ask when I walk into the room to find the
Commander had made a lightsaber out of a metal hanger and TIT is walking around
with a bottle of Febreeze spraying it at the Commander while making shooting
sounds with a microscopic lego piece of the Death Star in his mouth. I am horrified at this sight and pretty sure
that next diaper change, I am going to find some pieces of the Death Star in
TIT’s shit. “Matt, seriously, you can’t let them play with these things.
Someone is going to get really hurt. It’s a metal fucking hanger? Someone could
lose an eye.” I remove the hanger from the Commander’s hand and swipe the
Febreeze from TIT, which send both of them into hysterics again. “Give me back
my lightsaber. I need it. I need it. It’s mine. I want it back.” He makes a run
for the bed to get my husband to take his side. “Daddy, Mommy took my toy. I
need it back. I need my lightsaber.” While this is going on, TIT goes into the
bathroom and finds a pump of lotion and comes out pumping it and making
shooting sounds at the Commander who is now weaponless, pantless and jumping on
top of my husband who somehow is still trying to close his eyes during this
madness. “Zac put it down,” I say as I
try and wrestle the Neutrogena lotion from him before it’s all over the
floor. I disarm TIT who reacts by going
after his brother on the bed. He
surprises him and pushes the Commander down from behind and the Commander lands
square on the pile on the covers which is my husband. “Ouch,” he screams,
muffled from beneath piles of blankets. “Can
you take them in the other room,” he begs.
“Nope, this is your zone, my friend,” I say as I leave and
close the door and head out to the living room, my zone which for once is quiet and serene.
