Toddlers are less fun when they're sick.

The child is sick and has been crying crying crying nonstop for hours every day and as he screams my mind gets all dark and I feel like those evil little imps from the movie “Ghost” that go “bleah bleah” as they seep out of the shadows to drag the bad people into hell. (Yes, I just made a “Ghost” reference. I have not the mental energy to come up with something more clever. Someday I’ll make a Svankmajer reference, and won’t you be impressed then? Won’t you?) He’s in a constant state of crisis, always frantically needing something that is impossible to deliver, since apparently feverish toddlers believe that their teary protests will rend the fabric of reality, so that the very item they desire will come bounding toward them from some alternate universe. So, for instance, he wants a cracker BUT NOT THAT CRACKER! OH GOD I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU JUST OFFERED ME THE ONE CRACKER I DO NOT WANT, DAMN YOU, THE INJUSTICE, I WILL CLUTCH AT YOUR ANKLES AND WEEP WHILE POINTING AT THE SHELVES AT SOME OTHER BOX THAT ISN’T CRACKERS BUT SWEET CHRIST STOP TELLING ME IT ISN’T CRACKERS, JUST GIVE ME THE CRACKERS THAT SHOULD BE IN THERE, I DON’T CARE HOW IT’S DONE, I DON’T WANT TO HEAR YOUR LOGIC! I WILL SCREAM LOUDER, SO YOU GET THE POINT! AAAAAAIGH! NOW DO YOU SEE!

I am completely, utterly drained. I keep thinking he’s feeling better and then I’ll try to, say, put his shoes on and he’ll rip off the happy mask and shriek I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU’RE PUTTING SHOES ON ME AT A MOMENT LIKE THIS, THE PRECISE MOMENT WHEN THE LAST THING I NEEDED OR COULD HANDLE WAS SHOES! I DEMAND TO GO OUTSIDE TO THE GLASS- AND POOP-FESTOONED STREET BUT I WILL NEVER WEAR THOSE FOOT COVERINGS! YOU CAN’T MAKE ME LIVE BY YOUR RULES! HERE IS MORE SCREAMING FOR YOU!

He’s finally taking a nap although GOD HE DIDN’T WANT TO, WHY DID I PUT HIM IN THE CRIB OF DOOM. But, oh, he’ll wake up.

Why I should never be left alone with anyone under the age of eighteen.

Sigh. So, okay. Here’s what happened.

Yesterday, shortly after dinner. Henry was in dreamy, reflective mode, standing up on the window seat in our living room, gazing at the cars and flotsam. This is a narrow seat that he’s never left alone on, as he could immediately slip and fall, causing grave injury to his person. (Note the foreshadowing! NOTE IT!)

Anyway, I was of course sitting right there, right next to him, my legs stretched out across the seat as he pressed his body against the window. He was absentmindedly kissing the window and he was being so cute and so unusually still that I grabbed the camera off the coffee table and started taking pictures. Of course, while clicking away, I let go of him. And then. Then. He looked at the camera, grinned, shouted “Boom!” which is his way of saying, “Watch me comically throw myself down!” and—boom—he threw himself down. Only his butt landed on nothing--remember how I said how narrow the seat was? Remember?—because his butt was headed straight for the floor, but before his butt could reach its destination, his poor little skull cracked against the brutal coffee table edge, and OH MY GOD WHO TOLD ME I COULD HAVE A KID?

For a millisecond he lay there, staring up at me like, why am I down here, wasn’t I up there? and in that millisecond I thought, he’s not making a sound, he’s a vegetable, his brain has been pureed and then he started wailing, and I scooped him up and tried to comfort him as only an idiot-mother can, and I tried to figure out what to do and I couldn’t remember a damn thing, including my husband’s cell phone number, and all I could do was babble idiot words of idiot comfort to my poor trusting child. Miraculously, after ten minutes of unadulterated weeping he wiped his eyes and asked to read a book, so of course we did, me quizzing him on the name of every animal on every page, as if he might have lost the giraffe-identifying lobe of his brain.

So, in the end, everything was fine, Henry’s fine, we’re fine, tra la la. There’s not even a bump on his head. Everything’s fine, except I’M NOT FINE, I’m a total wreck still. I’m having flashbacks of the feeling of his little legs landing on my legs and then slipping away from me, stupid me with my stupid camera; I’m still watching him slip off me and I’m not reaching forward and dropping the goddamn camera and I hate myself. And the worst part is, I have a picture of that big grin he had on his face, the joyful get-a-load-of-this grin he gave me, one second before he discovered that his mother sucks.

On an unrelated topic, while searching the web for a good brain chart to link to, I found the kitty paintings of a schizophrenic artist. First the kitties are weird and THEN THEY’RE SO MUCH WEIRDER. Go see. I don’t know, though—I think the psycho kitties are less frightening than the “normal period” kitties. What does that say about me?

Does the Bumper Bonnet come in adult sizes?

At the playground this morning, Henry head-butted me, without warning or provocation, smack dab in the mouth. I was holding him (obviously; he’s not that tall yet) and chatting with an acquaintance, so when I first felt the impact I thought someone had playfully chucked a bowling ball at my teeth. Before I could have a second thought, tears began springing from my eyes; Henry was also bawling (why did her hard teeth hurt me like that?) and the acquaintance stared and asked, “Why is your face wet?” and I said, “Those are called tears,” and she said, “You hu-mans are so complicated,” and with that she glided away on her titanium casters and Henry and I sobbed all the way back to our apartment where we ate cream cheese and pumpkin spread on toast and felt a little better.

Now for some related trivia:

1. My acquaintance is not really a robot! She has feet, not casters.

2. I always want to write the past tense of “glide” as “glid.” Why isn’t that right? Has anyone looked into this?

3. Henry has hit me way harder than this before. His head-buttings have caused facial bruising and even a (slightly) bloody nose. Yet after those brutal assaults, I remained tear-free. I cry at everything else, though.

4. Once I cried at a tampon commercial.

5. A girl was trying out for the cheerleading squad, and she was sure she wouldn’t get in, but then—she did! I’m not sure how it related to tampons.

It's quiz time!

Guess which items I let my son play with this morning

a) an unplugged hair dryer

b) a plugged-in clock/radio

c) Charlie the dog’s gums

d) the contents of the upended bathroom wastebasket (tissue paper, floss)

e) container that once contained yogurt, and, all right, still does, in that Henry didn’t want to finish it, but is now feeding it to the dog, and kind of licking it himself, or at least pretending to

f) a steaming bucket of urine.

If you guessed everything but “f,” you’re correct, and as reward, you may judge me… now. No, wait. Okay, now.

Guess what I was doing while Henry was playing with the above items

a) sort of keeping one eye on him, but really reading a magazine

b) eating a waffle over the sink, real quick-like, before he saw me and decided that he deserved it more than I do

c) repeatedly asking him if it was time for his nap yet

d) Downing the bottle of scotch we keep around for when the grandparents visit (the grandparents enjoy the hooch, I’m sure they don’t mind me telling you) while making prank phone calls to ex-boyfriends.

If you guessed everything but “e,” well, I hope you’re right. Frankly, the morning is a bit of a blur for me.

Ha, ha!

Ha!

(...ha?)