As I am writing this, my little angel dumplin’ is chillin’ in his crib, singing happy songs about how much he loves his mother because of my undying affection for him.  He is holding his Momo blankie and thinking of all the fun times he had with me today. Like when he threw that soup can at my head.  Or when he picked up a baseball bat and hit me as hard as he could.  Or, here is the best part, when he grabbed a glass bowl that I was eating from and hit me directly in the nose and I seriously thought it was broken.  His favorite part of the day, I’m sure, is laughing at me as I tried to get him to stay in “the time out corner”.  This escape from baby prison game is THE BEST!  You know how psychopaths on TV like to smile as they’re about to torture their victims?  Well, I think my baby might be a psychopath.  This brings me to a quick flashback story.  It’s the reason I’m here-in this amazing situation.  It’s the reason for my punishment.

I was about seven months pregnant and working the night shift.  A CNA (who I barely knew) shows up at 11pm with her toddler because she couldn’t find a sitter.  Someone was supposed to come and pick him up any minute.  I was just glad she showed up. She goes down the hall to do her rounds and asks me to watch him.  I guess since I was pregnant, she assumed I liked children.  I didn’t.  As she walked down the hall, he started screaming, “Maaaamaaaaa!” and crying.  I spoke to him as if he was an adult.  “She will be back in a few minutes.  Chill out.”  For some reason, that didn’t seem to help.  “MAAAAAAMAAAAA!”  The tears are really starting to flow now.  What happened next was absolutely shocking to me.  He started banging his head on the floor and crying.  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” I said.  “STOP THAT!  Don’t do that!  Eeeekkkk….Staaahhhhhppppp.”  I called to his mom and told her to come back because he was banging his head on the floor like a crazy person.  “Yeah.  We’ve been trying to work on that.” she said calmly.  Uhhhh…what?  He like…does this….regularly?  And you’re not totally freaked out?  You’re “trying to work on that”?  Eventually, when a sitter never showed, I had to send her home.  I remember thinking her child needed some major help.  She obviously didn’t know what she was doing.  Poor kid would probably wind up with some major psychological issues.  The idea that she wanted me to watch this little demon child was just nuts.  You can’t ask someone you don’t know to watch your obviously troubled child without some sort of instruction.  She moved shortly after that and I don’t even remember her name.  She obviously didn’t know I thought her kid was whack, but in case she ever reads this, I AM SO SORRY.  YOUR CHILD IS BEAUTIFUL AND I AM A TERRIBLE PERSON.

My current situation is a child who laughs at me when I try to punish him in any possible way.  Time out to him is a game, Mommy talking sternly to him is hilarious, and spankings really just encourage hitting.  Before all the “spank your child” activists chime in, I did spank him.  He laughed at me and tried to hit me because it is obviously some sort of incredible slapping game.  Spanking might work for your child, but not for mine.  He’s a psychopath.

I called my dad.  He was at a loss for what to advise me.  I was like, THE perfect child (no really) so he didn’t have much experience with hard-headed-toy-hurdling-maniacs.  As I was explaining to Dad my nightmare of a day, Jack crawls up onto me, headbutts me IN MY ORBITAL, and laughs so hard he poots.  As I winced in pain and told Dad to hang on a second, Jack just laughed harder.  He thought my reaction was pretty much the funniest thing he’d ever seen.  The more he laughed, the more it hurt, until finally, I broke down.  “DADDY!” I proclaimed through tears and snot bubbles.  “HE HIT ME AND IT HURRRTTT AND HE’S-sniff-HE’S-sniff-HE’S-super long sniff-LAUGHING AT MEEEEEE!”  Luckily, I was on the phone with the man who is capable of throwing me the best of pity parties.  I’m not even going to tell you the terrible things he said about Jack.  He made me laugh so hard trying to convince me that my one and a half year old was definitely plotting my demise that I quickly went from crying to laughing to laugh-crying so intensely that Jack joined right in.  His cute little dimples appeared on his precious chubby cheeks, his beautiful blue eyes were barely visible through his smiling squint, and I was suddenly reminded by Jack that he wasn’t a bad baby.  He was a perfectly normal baby-and today was just a really bad day for the both of us.

Before bed, I checked on my little munchkin nugget.  He was sleeping on his side and holding his Momo blanket close. If I had picked him up, his tired little body would have hung over me like a rag doll.  The precious innocence of a sleeping child cannot be explained-only felt.  I could actually see a thought bubble next to his head with his happy dream.  In his dream, he was so strong, he was capable of picking up the television set and throwing it happily towards his mother’s face.   Goodnight, sweet baby.  I love you.