Full-On, Full-Time Mama

Is it them or me?  I investigate the roots of my foul mood on Father’s Day as Sweetie fishes in Mazatlan, Mexico, with his father.

Friday: the fourth grade graduates with big fan fare. We go out for lunch, the toy store, home, and to the park for a four-family picnic. We meet the world champion slack-liner. 10 has a friend sleep over. 

Having fun.

Saturday: we eat breakfast at Muffin Mania then install the Wii I bought for Sweetie, still fishing in Mexico. 10’s friend goes home. We drive to San Francisco to celebrate another friend’s 8^th grade graduation.

Life is great.

Sunday:  we do nothing but hang around the house.  Sort of a girl’s Paradise Island becomes paradise lost.  When 10 isn’t whining and crying about her cold or her Nintendo, it is 7.  When 7 isn’t whining and crying about her bee sting or about 3, 3 is manipulating a fistfight among 10 or 7 or both. 

An outing to In-and-Out is slashed in favor of watching “Spy Kids 3.”  So, soup and sandwiches substitute. 

Still happy.  (But I really wanted that burger.)

I bring up the babysitter I’ve scheduled so I can go to The Writing Mamas Salon tonight.  As if she were suddenly made an orphan, 7 breaks into teeth-torturing yelps and projectile tears.  3 wants a cookie and 10 launches into a story about a story about a dog, the details of which she assumes I’m grasping as I continue to sauté sausages for dinner.  At 5:00 I call the babysitter “just to be sure,” and she informs me she’s “napping.”  

“Didn’t you get my e-mail with the confirmation, directions and time?” I ask. My heartbeat quickens. 

“Yes, but people usually call to confirm.” With a clearly reluctant tone, she says she can still make it but she’ll be late because blah, blah, blah.

I say to myself, “shit.”  I go to 7’s room, where she’s been banished so all of us can hear.

7 adamantly and tearfully claims she hates new babysitters because “they always start out nice but end up really mean.”  Double shit.  I feel the tingle of a cold sore coming on. I don’t have a book idea to pitch to the literary agent who will be speaking to the salon tonight. 10 is nursing a cold.  7 hates babysitters. 3 is the only one behaving with any cooperative attitude, and that NEVER happens.

So, I do what no man would ever do: I cancel the babysitter. 

I take the road turned inwards, and I pour a glass of wine and watch Tiger Woods make the clutch putt for an 18-hole play off. 

There will be something to look forward to tomorrow.

By Lauren Cargill