How To Be 2

I love my son. I love my son very much. I love my son like he is a part of me, because he is. I hate kids, and I am starting to despise 2 year olds in general.
This week, Asa has been VERY good at being 2. And the good news is, my child is completely normal. But I am convinced that this is God's natural way of birth control. Who wants 10 of these suckers running around driving you insane? I'll tell you, I have new respect for Nick's grandmother, who had 11 kids. The woman was a warrior.
Tuesday we start with a haircut. We had a haircut before and it went fairly well. This time around you would have thought we had released the Hounds of Hell on Asa. He wiggled, he cried, he whined, he swatted the hand with the scissors. We got most of his hair done, but it is not quite as short as I wanted because he came close to losing an ear. But it will give him something to tell his therapist one day-you have to get your money's worth after all. Next up was lunch and that went as well. After getting in trouble for running around, Asa spilled his drink , dumped some of his food on the floor, and stuck his hand in the salsa. Well, I don't want to eat that NOW!
I woke up Wednesday with renewed spirit. After all, Scarlett said tommorrow was another day and here we were in Tommorrow. Asa was an ANGEL all morning. I patted myself on the back at what superior parenting skills I had. All the baby books were right-stay consistent and you will be rewarded with a well-behaved child. The restuaraunt I wanted to try supposedly had a children's play area. Okay, not really, but we were already there and I was hungry. All the people in Business Suits got nervous-it was that kind of eating establishment. But again, like a dream-Asa did everything I asked. I have learned-there is no excellent parenting, there are only kids getting ready to sucker punch you. After eating, we headed to a real play area at the mall, and all was good till we left and Mr. Angel turned into Chucky's cousin. He cried, screamed, touched every dirty thing he could find as we were leaving, and all through the mall. After picking up Daddy from work (to which we were late), we hit the grocery store. We can strap him in the cart but one hour later, Daddy says to me "I can't take anymore of this kid-let's go home". Granted, I was at my wits end too, but one hour?!?! I had the kid ALL DAY. These dark circles under my eyes aren't a bad make-up job.
Thursday, again, I am optimistic. Again, Scarlett goes through my head and it isn't raining. We take a shower, dry off, I go for my clothes, I leave Asa unattended for 2 minutes. 2 minutes. He hit the spare room, and shut the door. I am praying that he didn't pee on the floor, but when I open the door I am face to face with a turd, and a kid with poop all over his legs running down my hall. When he got to my room, I screamed his name, he jumped, and the remaining glob fell off there. One crying kid into the bath (I didn't hurt him but I also didn't play a game of chase), two globs of poop into the toilet (and some windex to get out remanents), and one upstairs that smells like a sewer-all as I stand there in my underwear. Who says multi-tasking is a dying art. And no guilt that Asa had a stone cold bath since we had just gotten out of the shower and I had asked him 3 times if he needed to go potty before I turned him loose. It's true-a mom's voice is like background noise you just don't notice.
Three days of this and I am off to work yesterday with a smile on my face and a song in my heart. I work part-time for a reason and this week was the reason. As I head home last night though, I am dreading what might be meeting me. So I walk in the door, see my son, his little face lights up and he runs to me, hugging my legs and saying "hi mommy". Okay, you little turd, I think I'll keep you after all.