She's crushing my soul...ok so I exaggerate.

I can’t have anything for myself that my daughter doesn't muck up with her grubby little kid hands.  I just found my bottle of Crystal Light water caved in on one side and cap half unscrewed as I stepped on a rug saturated with peach iced tea.  She broke my headphones today and pooped on the floor in the hallway because she did not want to stay on the potty!  Parenthood is beyond difficult.  Single-parenthood is excruciatingly difficult.  I can’t just hand her off to someone and say…You take her before I kill her.  I actually have to restrain myself from murder. 

A couple of evenings ago I stopped at the grocery store on the way home from my sister’s.  Eva was asleep in her seat and I knew that waking her was going to be a fool’s errand.  But…I needed shit in the store and I wanted ice cream.  I have to do what I have to do.  I turn off the car and softly start singing her name.  ”Eeeevvvaaa.”  She began to stir.  First a scowl then a whine.  I do it again, “Eeeeevvvaaa.”  This time she starts whining the word no…over and over.  ”Do you want to go into the store with Mumma and get some ice cream?” I asked so sweetly.  She answered with a whiny sob.  I stashed a pouch of juice in my purse to bargain with.  Then I got her out of her chair and carried her into the store.  

She whined the entire time.  I tried to put her into the seat of the cart.  She whined.  We entered the store.  She whined.  I gave her the pouch of juice.  I thought it would buy me a few minutes and that’s all I really needed.  She whined while she drank which was for about thirty seconds.  Upon slurping the last of the juice she let out a cacophonous, “Nooooooooo!”  One that rivaled The Evil Queen’s when she found out Snow White wasn’t dead…again.  The bag of juice was depleted and so was my patience.  

She cried and yelled, “No!”  And nothing I said or did would make her stop.  I pleaded.  I bargained.  I threatened.  She didn’t care and she told me so while she continued to make a scene.  One customer strolled by with his seven or eight year old son and said, “Poor little thing.”  It took everything I had to not snipe back at him, “Poor little thing?  I’m the poor little thing.  She’s torturing me you know.  Not the other way round.  This little fucker has me by the balls.  Don’t play her game!  Take your poor little thing and shove it up your ass!”  It was at this point that I knew we must leave the store now.  I heaved her tantruming little body from the cart and slung her over my shoulder.  Leaving the cart with the food and ice cream abandoned in the aisle.

With her over my shoulder I marched outside.  I wanted to take her by the scruff of the neck with one hand and by the back of her pants with the other and give her a few good heaves before letting her sail into the parking lot.  I decided not to.  Instead I plopped her down in her seat, buckled her harness and slammed the door.  I was so upset that I could not even relish the silence of the 8 second jaunt from her door to mine.  I got into the car.  She was quieter now but still crying.  I told her how disappointed I was that she behaved so badly in the store.  She began to quiet down.  Then she said, “Mumma, my mouth.”  Which is what she says right before she gets car sick.  ”I don’t care.”  I coldly replied.  ”Mumma needs you to be quiet on the way home.  I am very upset with you.”   This hurt her feelings and she started crying again.  I don’t like to see her hurt.  Can she tell when I’m hurting?  Probably not.  I’m exhausted and stressed.  I have a streak of grey hair right on the front hairline just left of the center of my forehead.  And now I have no Chunky Monkey.

As I drove she quieted.  However I began to sob quietly.  There was no specific reason for my tears other than…this shit is hard.  I’m tired and this shit is hard.