8:01 p.m. - 2012-02-12
5 years old
Just back from Mar's 5th birthday party, in Maine, at the in-laws', with all the kids. Observations: my in-laws are wonderful. My daughter was slightly bratty but mostly a good hostess. (One I explained to her how utterly rude it is to invite people to your birthday party and then ignore them and play Angry Birds on daddy's cell phone.) I hate, hate, HATE cell phones and every obnoxious app and behavior that accompanies them, especially Angry Birds. How are you supposed to have a family gathering when half the people in the room are in intense 1:1 exchanges with their cell phones at any given time? I hate cell ohones, have I mentioned that?
Cashy was cracking everyone up by changing his trucks' diapers and putting them down for naps and telling everyone to be quiet. He even pats them and strokes their hoods to settle them down. (Don't tell me to get him a doll. I would be perfectly fine with him playing with dolls, but Cashy refuses to acknowledge the existence of anything that isn't a motor vehicle, a power tool or a dog. The only thing he's ever been willing to do with a doll is cart it around in one of his dump trucks.)
So ... how did this happen, anyway? Seems like I woke up this morning and I have a kid. Hey, wait -- TWO kids. How did this happen?? And one of my kids is 5??? Shit! How is this possible? When did this happen? I don't feel old enough to be as old as I am, and I definitely do not feel old enough to be the mother of a five-year-old.
My MIL has been on a gluten-free diet for the past couple of years so I made some gluten-free brownies and stuck them on top of the fridge with the cake Mammy made for the party but can't eat herself. I just stuck a note on them that said "mammy's brownies -- gluten-free." So she found them when she was taking down the forbidden cake to serve it. I think that made her happy. She didn't know where they came from at first, but eventually she figured out it was me.
You know that voice in my head that tells me how worthless I am all the time? It gave me a real hard time about those brownies. I happen to think they're really, really good, espicially compared to most gluten-free baked goods. The usual flour substitutes taste weird no matter what you do to them, but the brownies don't constain a flour substitute; the main ingredient, believe it or not, is black beans. Sounds disgusting, but it's quite the opposite.
So anyway, all day my head was berating me about those brownies. I worry that she thinks they're gross and is just eating them to be polite. I worry that Mammy and Papa think I'm just sucking up, trying to win them over to my side or hang to them now that their son has decided he doesn't want to be married to me.
I'm pathetic. The brownies are awful. Mammy and papa dislike me as much as their son does. Blah blah. And then I start thinking that I really need to go jump off a bridge because I am so damn sick of looking at my ugly face in the morning.
Extreme, I know. Irrational. That's why I'm writing about it -- to challenge the voice, to declare war on the voice.
So,
1. "those brownies are gross, the idea was lame, and mammy was just eating them to be polite.
Challenge: Actually, they are really good. And if they're not, and mammy doesn't like them -- so what?
2. She think I'm just trying to win her over because M. is probably going to divorce me.
Challenge: So what?
3. M & p hate my guts.
Challenge: Mammy promised me a long time ago that I won't lose them in a divorce and I know that they actually like me a lot, even though Matt has said nastily a couple of times that they don't.
But what the hell does he know about how his parents think of me? Mammy has been on a gluten-free diet for a couple of years and M had no idea until yesterday, when he asked me why I would make his mom gluten-free brownies. Matt, the conduit of what goes on in his parents' heads -- I think not!
He's much to busy worshipping himself to notice what goes on in the lives of people all around him. Screw him.
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