Who dresses better: a mom or a fugitive?

 "Hi" and "How are you?" are fine greetings, but I prefer salutations to be informative:

"I have barf on my shirt!" I said, welcoming three non-mom friends into my home Friday night. 

They smiled at me. I also had mustard in my hair and a film of baby saliva clinging to my neck like a barfly hoping to get lucky. 

I didn't have a minute to change before they arrived.  No Matter. I didn't have anything to change into. 

Scarlett's meals du jour are splotched over every article of clothing I own. There's mashed avocado on the tush of my yoga pants, crusty peach puree on the sleeves of my t-shirts and tiny yogurt handprints on everything else.  

My only spring jacket - the one I just had dry cleaned - looks like it was mauled by a rabid squirrel monkey. Small nail nicks and teeth marks descend from the shoulders like a troupe of ants marching down a sand hill.

Typically, I notice these things when it's too late, like just after I've left home and the kids are buckled into the car. Or, I'm in the presence of people who should think I'm fit to parent, like Hudson's nursery school teachers. Or, I'm with people who might be embarrassed to be seen with a freak.

"What they hell is that?" I spat, after catching a glimpse of the squirrel-monkey mauled jacket. I was in Yorkville with a stylish friend who, unlike me, could not feed a football team with the food crusted onto her sleeves.

"I didn't want to tell you," she said.  

A couple months ago, when I felt particularly dirty, hideous and vulnerable, I did something stupid: I visited a make-up counter at Holt Renfrew. 

The salesman was suave. He sidled up to me as I was fingering the mascaras. 

"Come, sit down," he said. I think he had a Spanish accent because what he said next didn't sound so bad. "You need moisturizer and something to make you look younger."

Did I mention he was also dark and tall?

It was his lucky day. My credit card magically appeared on the table.

Anywho...

When my sisters and I were small (they were babies when I was a preteen), I was mortified by my mom's appearance because she always had a big white burp stain down the fronts of her shirts. 

I have become my mother. 

I actually heard her voice coming out of my mouth when I dropped Hudson off at nursery school last week and apologized to a fellow mom about my slovenliness. 

"I look like a fugitive," I said. 

"You look like a mom," she countered. "I'm not sure which is worse."

Me neither!

When they say "couples massage" they don't mean bring your baby

Ever have one of those times when you think you might go nuts?

I have. 

Scarlett was wriggling out of her high chair yesterday morning, arching her back, flapping her small head against the unyielding plastic tray while her shrill screams permeated my temples and Hudson wouldn't stop talking.

"Mom, shall I go on your back?" he asked. 

"Hudson, my love," I said, through gritted teeth, "Mommy's busy feeding Scarlett for a few minutes."

"Okay, mom," he said. "Shall I be the pilot and you be the plane that lands on the couch?"

"Not now sweetheart," I said.

"I don't want mango," he retorted, apropos of nothing. "I want a peanut butter sandwich. I HATE MANGO. I WANT PEANUT BUTTER."

Here love, I said, placing my still shrieking Scarlett on her playmat then spreading peanut butter between two slices of raisin bread with shaking hands. 

"There's a spider in this bread," Hudson said. "I don't want it. I DON"T WANT IT."

Enter Ted. 

"Ted," I said. "I can't take it anymore," and proceeded to rant for a minute or so.

Then Ted, smiling slyly (because my falling apart-ness may have been read as an invitation to joke, I guess), said something stupid, which I shall not repeat here. I countered with "well, you're not capable of feeding yourself breakfast when you have to watch one child, you useless piece of bleep." 

"Here," I said, shoving Scarlett into his arms. "Just try to get them both ready to leave the house. I'm going to shower! I never get to shower!!"

Moments later, carrying a disgruntled Scarlett and looking a little disgruntled himself, Ted came to apologize. I accepted and said I was sorry for swearing (this is part of our twice weekly routine. We laugh it off), yet I continue to unravel. 

My ever looser ball of yarn is affecting the way I carry myself in public.

Because the pneumonia and strep throat weren't enough for my body to work through this past five weeks, my hip decided it wanted to seize up too. 

I hobbled into a massage clinic on Monday, Scarlett in tow (because I couldn't find anyone to watch her), looking like Max Headroom meets Amelia Bedelia meets Andrew Dice Clay. My newly dyed too-blonde hair covering my eyes, I stumbled past the door, knocking Scarlett's bucket, hanging in the crook of my elbow like an evening bag, into my bad hip. Her large plush caterpillar fell from my jacket pocket onto the floor and I started cursing. 

The massage therapist stared like he was watching a circus freak: part shock, part pity.

"What the hell did I do to myself?!" I said, catching his gaze. "Can you fix this?"

Silence. 

I sensed he figured there was too much to fix.

I lay down under on the massage table anyway and placed Scarlett on a blanket on the ground near my head. I surrounded her with toys to no avail. She wailed, bawled, shrieked and did everything she could to express her displeasure with the situation for 20 minutes.

"That's it! I said, jumping off the table, almost knocking out the massage therapist with my elbow or one of my flying boobs (her crying made me so uneasy, I forgot I wasn't wearing a bra). "This is over! I can't take it!"

"I'm going to go outside," the massage therapist said, averting his eyes.

"I'm so sorry," I apologized to the therapist, after packing Scarlett into her bucket and getting dressed (Imagine that, she stopped crying the moment I picked her up). "I should not have brought my daughter. This was all my fault and very wrong of me."

I whipped out my credit card to pay.

The therapist smiled. 

"Put your credit card away," he said. 

"No, really, I insist. I wasted your time," I said.

"I'm a dad," he said. "I get it."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is my "100" collection. Okay, it's hudson's collection.... Why did I do this?!