Mediocre Drama

I am starting to believe that the only thing more mediocre than my mothering skills are the mothering skills of the people I hire to watch the Captain. I have been at the end of my rope with the babysitter for some time and am counting the days til late-August when I can finally say hasta la vista (insert "Baby" if you must for emphasis).

Clearly, the real problem is that I've only been picking the Captain up from her place on Fridays, which leaves me wide open for attack. As I've mentioned before, she has a Neanderthal view of parenting and seems to save up her pent up bullshit for days when I'm on pickup duty. If it's a Friday, all the better; she gives me a tongue lashing for everything that happened all week. So, here, for your mild amusement, are my last two Fridays in a two Act mini-Opera. PS - I envision the whole thing sung in Spanish...

La niñera es un cunt

Act I - The Potty

Now, just a little setting of the stage, the Captain has had absolutely no potty problems for months. Not only will he go in strange settings, he's mastering standing up when a proper step stool is present and even made an entire road trip to New York without any accidents. And it, therefore, perplexed us, that the only place he seems to be having "issues" is at the babysitter's house.

Me - How is he doing on the potty?

Babysitter - He doesn't want to go.

Me - Well, does he ask to go?

Babysitter - No. Never.

Me - That's so strange, because he always asks, not just us and his teachers but friends too.

Babysitter - (in a snarky tone) You know, I'm not one to tell someone how to raise their children (the audience laughs) but I know this woman who used to force her child to go on the potty and the child turned out strange.

Me - (aghast) Well, how can I be forcing him if he's asking to go?

Babysitter - (in disbelief) Oh, I wasn't saying YOU were forcing him.

Me - Well, it seems to me that if he's going at home, at school, and everywhere else, that it's simply a game he's started with YOU.

Babysitter - Oh.

Me - I'll show you how good he is. Captain (to the Captain)? Do you want to go to the potty.

CK - OK

Enter potty stage right

Me - Okay, Captain, where's the potty seat.

Babysitter - Oh, I don't have one.

The curtain falls.

Editors analysis - now, could it be that back in February when we started potty training and we took the time to go out and buy her a potty seat and dropped him off at her house with it, only to have her hand it right back to us with her exclaiming, "Oh, I don't need one I already have one," that she may have been...lying? And what's more, WHY?????? Is she so hung up on her old Italian ways of doing it her way that she can't for one second contemplate that an early potty trainer (under 2-1/2) might be a bit intimidated by the big bowl and if it doesn't mean any extra cleanup or drama that it couldn't hurt just to put him on the mother fucking seat?

Act II - Your child hits.

Our background for this blog entry is that every time the Babysitter wants to make me feel like a shitty parent she tells me that the Captain sometimes goes over and hits other kids and that she's never seen a child behave like that. He really should be put in a petri dish and studied.

Babysitter - The Captain sometimes goes over and hits other kids and I've never seen a child behave like that.

Me - Well, you've mentioned this before. Did you punish him?

Babysitter - Oh no. I won't do that. I'm just telling you so that you can take care of it at home.

Me - (defensively) Well, Babysitter, I'm not really sure what to tell you. You've mentioned this before and since I don't have other children around the house it's difficult to correct behavior that I'm not seeing. They correct him at school when it happens...

Babysitter - Well, obviously they're not doing a good job if he's still doing it (yes, apparently she believes it is their job to fix and not hers)!

Me - ...and he's no longer hitting at school because of it. And if I'm ever around it I correct it, but if you aren't going to punish him when it happens here I don't see what else you want me to do.

Babysitter - Well, I never would have told you I knew you were going to get upset.

Me - (raising my voice) You told me and I'm telling you what you should do. If he lashes out at another child he has to sit out and not play because playing is a privilege.

Babysitter - Well, I tried punishing him a couple of times in the beginning (Editors note - ummm...the beginning was 7 months ago) and it didn't work so I don't punish him.

(changing the topic)

So, Mediocre Mama, have you lost some weight?

Curtain Closes. The end.

This woman is killing me every time I see her. I feel like I'm running from the living dead when I see her (Editor's Note - Zombie movies rock, fyi), like if I let her speak one word to me she's going to suck my brain out.

3-1/2 more months. Holy crap I might not make it.

Shake n' Bake.

A friend sent me this link a few months ago and I never got around to posting it. This lady makes homemade bento lunchboxes every day, which makes me feel decidedly half-assed when I toss the mac-n-cheese in the microwave or slap together some PB&J. To be sure, if it takes me more than 5 minutes to pull together a lunch for the Captain then I feel I have wasted my time on what could otherwise been valuable websurfing or blogging. I hate that this crazy bitch is giving people the impression that one should be slaving over a hot stove every day so that their loved ones can eat well. The only thing more annoying than her is all the people who comment on her blog and follow her mantra. I wonder what her momtourage looks like...Yes, I mock because I'm inferior.

And let me just say as a sidebar, feel free to shoot me if I ever start cutting the Captain's sandwiches in dinosaur shapes. To me it's wrong on two levels: (1) it seriously fails on the Too Cutsey scale; and (2) it's decidedly a waste of food. Knowing me those extra bits of unusued sandwich would end up in just one place, my ass.

Shopping Fart

I have come to understand why so many parents leave their kids in the car in the sweltering heat and get turned in to child services for all manner of similar behavior. It's because the fucking shopping cart gestapo is out there and they are scary.

Today I was assaulted by one such member of the third Reich. To protect his true identity I will call him "rich-fat-ass-with-no-kids-too-much-time-on-his-hands-and-a-small-penis-which-is-clearly-the-reason-he-doesn't-understand-the-plight-of-a-mediocre-mama-because-he's-never-had-a-baby-or-quite-possibly-he's-a-eunuch." For short, I'll call him Euni. I digress.

I'm shopping at the local market with the Captain, loading my cart up with sushi and all manner of expensive goods because I finally got a job offer (more on that later). I'm feeling pretty good about myself, even bought environmentally conscious shopping bags to boot, but my bad back has been pretty horrible lately and I'm willing to take as many shortcuts as possible when it comes to carrying things. Anyways, my parking spot is in a land far far away and naturally I have to roll the tiny tot and groceries to the car. With no cart returns in the lot, I do the only thing possible and roll the cart between the spots, up towards the top so no one will have trouble getting in or out. I get in the car and quick as a whip, Euni starts shouting at me. At first I thought it was German, but no, it was my native tongue and he offered this scathing review:

Euni - You're too lazy to return your cart.

Me (stepping out of my car to see if he wants a piece of this) - Excuse me? I have a baby in the car.

Euni - You're irresponsible, blocking car spots, and too lazy to return your cart.

Now, I'm blinded with confusion because I thought the baby in the car was a pretty good rationale, not to mention that if he weren't yelling at me to return my cart someone else would have turned me in to child authorities for leaving my kid in the car by himself on a warm day, no less.

Me - Well, I'll tell you what, I'll pay you $.25 and you can babysit my kid WHILE I RETURN YOUR GODDAMN SHOPPING CART! No emphasis added, I assure you.

Many heads turn and now I AM being irresponsible because I for sure am driving angry.

Will someone please tell me what the point of striving to be a little less mediocre as a mama when Euni is going to shout me down for it? Did I do something incorrect? And if he was so civic minded and worried about the spot I was blocking, wouldn't he have just offered to return the cart for me?