We now rejoin our midlife crisis, already in progress

Posted on by

We went to the guitar store today to restring Peanut’s awesome little 1/2 scale SX guitar. He earned it potty learning, when he got 20 dry days in a row (and therefore 20 stickers) at 21 months. He bought himself a guitar with the stickers. You’re damned right, kiddo. Not yet two and dry all the time? Guitar? Fine.

Well the trip to the guitar mecca coincides with a midlife crisis I’ve been contemplating, based in part on the nausea I’m feeling at life, my choices, and the impending and rapidly growing BOMB that will descend on my already precarious situation. My midlife crisis today looked a LOT like a $2660 twelve string guitar. Then it looked like an $80 used and totally awesome used natural ash wood bass for the band my newest peeps and I are starting. Then my midlife crisis looked like a miraculous $3200 keyboard that sounded honest to goodness like a well tuned piano.

And then my midlife crisis reminded me what end was really up. Because besides not having even the $80 for a bass, I don’t have time for a new hobby. I have a novel to edit. Again. I have a paper to submit, another paper to write, and a PhD application to ponder for next fall. I have to find a babysitter and a preschool.

I grabbed an Atwood at the library, because there’s nothing to counter balance 32 picture books like an Atwood. We got home late and I had to wash dishes and make dinner. Peanut was in a lovely mood and tried to dump out a whole canister of ground flax. Sealed, luckily, but he was willing to test Oxo’s sturdy seal.

I asked him nicely to put it down, and he did. Sweetly. In the dining room. I continued thinking about whether, really, cowboy boots would serve the same purpose as a guitar, as midlife crises go. Maybe I’d need them for the band (blues, I think, but whatever. Everything goes with buckaroo boots.)

I went into the dining room to give Peanut some carrot sticks. He had dumped all the flax neatly on the table and was sorting it into piles. I took a deep breath and told him to get down. I asked, as I gathered the placemat parking lots, what he was trying to do. He was making pretend smoothies. Sure. okay. As I brought the soapy sponge back and forth from the kitchen, I explained that while pretend is a good idea, his pretend kitchen is a better place for pretend juices. And that using real food for pretend food isn’t a good idea. And that I understand how he wants to help, so he can make a real blender juice with my help. But real food always needs a yes from Mommy.
Okay?
Well, kind of. Except that now, at the dining room table, he has his face burrowed into my brand new, 64 oz. jar of organic kosher pickles. tongue fully extended, licking the brine in the freaking jar. i collapsed on the floor. Took a deep breath. Contemplated a good cry and realized that I already had his cold, so, no harm no foul. I mean, really, really foul, but I’ll be done with the pickles in a few days, so…meh. I told him how not okay it is to put hands or mouths on containers of food. I try to explain, I try to be forceful but casual. I remember a gorgeous burbinga wood guitar and take another breath.

So we make a smoothie together. He’s happy and proud of his blueberry pouring skills. I’m almost ready with dinner. I turn away to get cups for the juice. I pour the juice. I turn away to get lids for the juice.

And now I need one fewer lid because he’s poured all of one juice on himself, trying to get to the purple one first. “you can’t have thee purple one,” he began, before getting really wet and cold.

Here’s the thing, people. I’m barely hanging on. And now the flax-y sponge has to sop up 12 ounces of blueberry smoothie. WHY CAN’T PREGNANT WOMEN DRINK, AGAIN?

I don’t think a late night trip to the pawn shop to trade my wedding ring for a guitar is too much to ask.

17 thoughts on “We now rejoin our midlife crisis, already in progress”

  1. Dear God, you’re right, this calls for a glass of wine. Since you can’t, I’ll have one for you.

    And remember, tomorrow is a new day. (A new day for new messes, LOL!)

  2. Word. Starting in on all my midlife crises aka plan Bs aka teary contemplations of mediocrity and failure would be too much. So I will simply say, take a cue from the Europeans and have a glass of wine now and then after the 1st trimester. I sure did.

  4. You know some day you WILL look back on this and laugh. If you can’t partake in a swig of wine (the Europeans are rolling their eyes), then I think your day calls for chocolate.

  5. Gorp… I feel for you. I can’t remember if I’ve already said this, but I decided that parenting requires a tremendous ability to be inauthentic…. for example, “Oh, honey… it’s okay that you had a poop accident on the carpet. It was surprising! And then you stepped in it because you were running to get me, which was a really good choice” when inside it’s more like, “Oh fucking hell no! I can’t take it any more! How THE HELL am I going to clean poop out of our lovely wool wall-to-wall carpet. That’s it… I am officially giving up. Someone else can do this.”

    I vote for the bass. I’ll even split it with you, because I have a vested interest in having our midlife-crisis band together.

    P.S. You’re awesome, and have the patience of a saint.

  6. Ooh what was your Atwood? That would help me starve off a mid-life crisis for at least a couple of days too.

    I prescribe repeat doses of calming and inspiring literature and repetition of the mantra “This too shall pass…”

    Hang in there x

  7. Holy Shitfire! That Peanut was BUSY yesterday.

    But guess what? You didn’t YELL, which is, like, the most amazing thing ever! I would have been hollering and *I* am lucky enough to be able to have wine!

    Gold Medal goes to: Naptime!

  10. I think it’s time to start DVD time every day. Think a half an hour or an hour or even an hour and half all to yourself to make your own messes.
    Barring that, maybe I should take the Peanut off your hands once a week.

  12. Look on the bright side: you’re only expecting one new baby. Not two. Or three. ONE. You can do this.

    (And you should watch Mad Men if you haven’t already. You can probably get drunk just by watching the pregnant characters drown away their lives in cocktails.)

  13. I must second The Kitchen Witch’s wonder at your composure. I need to learn to be forceful but casual. Teach me?

    And another “here, here” for Mad Men. Mothering certainly looked easier back in the day. Plop the kids in front of the TV (after you have one of them make you a stiff drink), light a ciggie, thank the housekeeper for her help. Nice.

  14. Consider MadMen put at the top of my Netflix queue.

    Why the hell does that word need so many vowels? I’m not a francophobe, but come on people. That’s just gratuitous. And so is gratuitous…dammit!

    Word to all you mamas and papas. And for the record, I’m not all that worried about having a glass of wine once in a while. I’m worried that if my response to a three-year-old’s bad behavior is booze that my new, best career choice will be binge drinker. I’m not known for moderation or restraint…

  15. You know Naptime… I’m stepping back and seeing maybe sumpin a lil’ frightening in my Summer of 1000 cocktails approach to raising 3 kids

  16. @alex, as long as you keep records, it’s not reckless.
    @country-fried the secret is pure exhaustion. I used to yell. Now I have nothing left.
    @ck you’re only saying that because you got one of ONE and one of TWO. If you had two ONEs, you’d change your tune, wouldn’t you now? I almost pass out every time Peanut says it might be two. NOT funny, dude.
    @the rest of you: if you can handle two and three and four, I just have to be able to make it with one. Right? Right? Anyone? Bueller?
    Oh my goodness, it’s like Peanut is Calvin (of “and Hobbes” fame) on the way to becoming Ferris Bueller. Heaven help us.

  17. This sounds like the kernel for a great sitcom episode (of course not as funny when really happening to you: hugs)!!

    And…I hope you’re posting about the Atwood later!

Comments are closed.