When I decided to have a third child I failed to take into account a few minor details. Summer, for example. I did not consider the Summer months when I was thinking how nice it would be to have little red-haired, blue-eyed mini version of myself, (I'm convinced I willed those traits onto her) and now that Summer is here I find myself overwhelmed with the desire to climb to the back of my closet, lights off, deep in the corner, hugging my knees to my chest with a tight grip on a very stiff drink. I remember the days when I had one self-sufficient child and one fairly independent 2 year-old that would play in the back yard happily - trapped within the fence and only coming to me with drink requests or scraped knees. I remember it like it was just 365 days ago. I could do thinks like vacuum or shower. But, then I had to go and get knocked up with my selfish desire for ONE CHILD that looks like ME! Stupid Murphy Gene. I go through all the work and the trauma and the stretch marks and the future boob job only to look like the nanny in my family pictures. So I played the odds. Statistics is the only math that I was really good at, anyway... probably because it's easily manipulated.
The odds worked mostly in my favor... there are still little bits of her father in there. She's definitely fitting right in as a Murphy in that she couldn't look more Irish if she were drunk and made out of potatoes. I mostly won out, though. VICTORY!! And it was easy to get into a schedule. During school we spent every Tuesday and Thursday together while kid 2 was in preschool making art history, and kid 1, of course, in 1st grade. Kid 3 and I would clean and do laundry... go to the gym or Target and grab a Starbucks and go look at all the cute infant fashions. We would smile and laugh, the sun beaming down on us with rays of happiness and giggles.
And then it was May.
School ended.
I no longer have my Tuesday and Thursday adventures alone with the baby. Now I just have Monday - Sunday shouting, screaming, and whining. It didn't help matters that the first couple of weeks of summer break were filled with rainy indoor adventures. The girls were bored and it is, apparently, my job to fix this problem. Only every idea I come up with is shot down like a clay pigeon. My day is filled with "Mom! Watch THIS!!" which is usually followed by a time-out, a band-aid, or applause. Everything I put away is immediately taken back out to be played with because toys are not interesting until they have been placed back on the shelf. Dress up consists of taking all of the clothes off the hangers and dumping them on the floor - this normally happens right after I have put all of the laundry away. Art projects with glue and scissors become the "hairdresser" game. What happened to my normal children? The baby suddenly needs to be sitting up when she's lying down, lying down when she's sitting up, picked up when she's tired and put down when she's awake and no matter what - NEEDS me to be in her line of sight at all times.
So my house is a cluttered mess, which is driving me absolutely MAD! I'd get a Roomba to do the vacuuming, but there's only like 1 sq. foot of exposed floor throughout most of the day. There are earwigs EVERYWHERE! In the mailbox, in my shoes, on the ceiling... how do they stay up there!? My plants have fruit flies in the soil and they might be the single most annoying bug on the planet... next to the house fly. Although I don't expect ot be having a problem with them anymore... I chased a fly for 30 minutes with the vacuum, finally sucked it up and then just when it was really freaked out - I released it so that it would go and tell all of the other flies about the crazy lady with the fly sucking machine in the house on the hill. I don't expect to see anymore houseflies.
One just landed on my arm as I typed that. DAMN! Stupid daredevil flies.
And just when there might be one single moment of peace during the day, there will inevitabley be a HUGE diaper that has exploded all over everything. So now here I am... in the closet... hiding like a coward. Running like Dr. Frankenstein from my own selfish creation while they shout at me about how badly we need Wonderhangers or Oxyclean. Stupid infomercials.
I need a vacation! And I'm taking one! And I can't WAIT!!
Of course I'm really gonna miss these little buggers while I'm gone.
