Monday, April 20, 2009

I am mother watch me judge

I was flipping through channels today. It's a good thing cable comes with phone service because there's nothing on during the day, and The Child is awake and needing attention when all the good shows are on. I do not particularly care to become involved in a poorly-acted, dimly lit, neverending romance/thriller/murder mystery/Danielle Steele novel--also known as a "soap opera". I cannot understand the appeal. The rest is infomercials, QVC and HSN. Yay.

I got sidetracked. It's another beer night, and I tend to ramble.

I was flipping through channels, and I ran across America's Funniest Home Videos, which I rarely find all that funny. The brief part I saw was of a young boy opening a Christmas present. Whatever was in it scared the living daylights out of him because totally freaked out and screamed and jumped up and away from the box. And while he's running around screaming, they continue to film and laugh at him, and he's yelling, "It's not funny! It's not funny!" and he's almost in tears. There is invariably a video like this on AFHM, which is much of the reason I really don't like it.

I don't know what the difference is between that and me making fun of The Child, but something about it made me so sad. Maybe it's that he's terrified, and they're laughing at him. Maybe it's that his humiliation is being used as a bid for prize money. I don't know. But it bugs me. There's a line between laughing at your kids and ridiculing them, I think.

Grace is funny and sometimes absurd because she does the things that all babies do, that babies are supposed to do. She bonks herself in the head with her rattle, and that's funny. She has tights on her head, that's funny. Even when she falls over from a sitting position and bonks her head, it's a little funny (once the tears are all gone). But when she's scared or sad or really hurting, I do not find that funny, no matter how silly the reasons seem to my adult eyes. Even if I could laugh about it later, I can't imagine filming her (and not comforting her) and broadcasting her terror on national television on the off chance that I'd win a prize.

But maybe I'm being too judgy and by my fourth kid I'll be rolling my eyes at this.


James is gone today through Wednesday. I'M DRINKING ALONE. Just one beer. No worries.

But this place is spooky enough at night when he is here. Thus the one beer. I can relax just a little. But not so much that I couldn't kick some butt if I had enough adrenaline. I like to think that I've learned a thing or two from Special Agent Dana Scully and Agent Sidney Bristow. My hair isn't fabulous, so I'm hoping it's the combat skills.


I had another moment today. I was feeding Grace, and she was being kind of lazy about it--eating for thirty seconds, stopping to look up at my face and stare at me for another thirty, and back and forth. My heart stops completely when she looks at me like that. Like I'm the absolute center of her universe, and there is nothing she wants more in this world than me and my arms and my warmth. It won't be like this for much longer. It makes me very sad sometimes. We'll have more babies, I hope, but I don't think it will ever be the same as it is with the first. She's special.

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