9:11 a.m. - 2012-03-21
why I don't want to be a foster parent,...
You know, I always wanted to be a foster parent. I'm good with kids and I'm especially good with the kind of kids that drive off nannies and babysitterss with aplomb. Nobody ever drove me off, probably because I give tit for tat when it comes to practical jokes.
After I had marley I wanted to be a foster parent even more. She was so sweet, and trusting, and dependent and innocent, and I couldn't stand the fact that there are millions of little kids like Mar out there with no one to love and protect them ...
Then I had Cash.
Suffice to say I no longer want to be a foster parent. I'm no longer sure that I'm good with kids, and I no longer believe that my children's behavior has anything to do with my parenting. I believed that when my kid was an angel -- it was because I was such a great parent -- but now I have another child who appears to be Satan's spawn.
Which,of course, would make me Satan.
Sometimes I definitely feel like I might be Satan, or would like to be. I've read that modern satanism is about living life for pleasure, in the moment, instead of following all of society's anal and esoteric rules -- such as that you can't duct tape your 2-1/2-year-old to the ceiling and go take a bubble bath even if what you really, really want to do is duct tape your 2-1/2-year-old to the ceiling and go take a bubble bath.
(Yeah, I am breaking a lot of the rules in the parenting books by describing my children as the angel and the devil ... but you haven't met them, so shut up.)
Seriously speaking, for the record, I adore my son, and a lot of the time I am as amazed and I am irritated by him. My son wakes up every morning with two over-riding, all-encompassing passions, or needs -- to find trouble and get in it, and to figure out what every one else wants to do and sabotage it. This is a child who waits for his sister to go to the bathroom, runs in after her, and chucks a toy in the toilet while she's pulling her pants down -- and then laughs his ass off.
This is a child for whom an object five feet over his head is anything but out-of-bounds -- he says, "hmm," like a cartoon character and then pulls down the curtains and co-opts the curtain rod. This is a child who, if he can't get through a locked door, will go off to wherever he hides my screwdrivers and unscrew the doorknob.
He is brilliant. I am damned.
He fights me every second of every minute of every day. He throws a fit at mealtime because he doesn't want to eat, and another fit because he doesn't want to leave the table. Every morning after his bath, we have a ritual where he refuses to cooperate with getting dressed and I say, "Fine, not my butt's that's gonna freeze off," and go about my business, and then he chases me around with his clothes, hanging on my legs and shrieking, trying to trip me ... as soon as I say, "OK, fine," and make a move to dress him, he starts screaming "no clothes" and flailing and kicking and tries to run away. I say, "fine, have it your way," and he grabs my legs and starts screaming, "Mommy! Clothes! MOMMY! CLOTHES!!!" I usually end up just pinning him down and dressing him by force, and he screams and flails like I'm skinning him alive.
That's when I smile my sweetest and say, "It's a good thing you're so damned cute!"
And he says, "Damn! DAMN! DAMN! Damn Gradma! Damn Daddy! DAMN CAR! DAMN YOU! SHIT DAMN DAMN."
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