Parenting: Illustrated with Crappy Pictures

by Amber Dusick

  HOW KIDS WAKE UP

  The reason it is so excruciatingly painful to be woken up in the morning isn’t necessarily because I stayed up too late the night before or because my kids wake up before the sun does.

  It is because of the way they wake up. Kids are on-off light switches. They have an off:

  And they have an on:

  They can go from off to on instantly.

  While me? I am a dimmer switch:

  A very slow dimmer switch.

  Fueled by coffee.

  COFFEE: THE PARENTING WONDER DRUG

  I never drank coffee before I had kids. We didn’t even own a coffeemaker.

  Back in those days, I looked down upon anyone who needed coffee in the morning.

  Then I had two kids.

  Kids wake up with energy. Kids wake up with loudness.

  Kids wake up too fucking early.

  No, I will not play with you. Go away. I need coffee.

  After coffee:

  I don’t need it. But they need me to have it.

  I’ll stop drinking it just as soon as they stop waking me up before dawn.

  So if anyone ever asks how I pulled off writing a book with two young kids at home, you know the answer. Late nights and drugs. (I could just say coffee, but answering it this way sounds rock-starish. And really, parents are just uncelebrated rock stars—we stay up late, take drugs and treat our bodies like crap. Yay!)

  And now that this chapter is nearly finished, I will solve all your sleep problems with this brilliant bit of advice (and it isn’t even coffee):

  Awww, come on, did you really think I had an answer? Nobody does. Yawn. Group hug.

  I like eating. My kids sometimes like eating, too.

  MY BREAST-FEEDING JOURNEY (WELL, SOME OF IT)

  Before we get to solid food, we should start way back at the beginning. Breast-feeding.

  This is what it was like to nurse Crappy Boy:

  I’d sit down on the couch to nurse. Crappy Boy would fall asleep. I couldn’t move or he’d wake up. I had to pee and I was hungry and thirsty.

  We’d often have dinner while he nursed:

  Sometimes, I even went to the bathroom while nursing:

  In fact, I went everywhere while nursing.

  I felt like a ninja.

  And this is what it was like to nurse Crappy Baby:

  Some babies don’t just lie there. No, they like to mess with stuff. Some rub their own ears or hair. Some grab for the other nipple. Some pull off their mother’s glasses. And some fiddle with her bra straps. Crappy Baby was a belly button digger. If I forgot to cut his nails, I wound up with little red scratches. But what he really enjoyed was trying to pick my nose and putting his feet in my mouth:

  And he’d giggle, while still latched on.

  Once he was mobile, he never stopped moving, even to nurse:

  He performed nursing yoga, constantly switching positions. He’d look behind him or around the room. And sometimes he even forgot to unlatch when he got down to play. Despite my increasingly extendable nipples, that actually hurt quite a bit.

  EARLY EATING STYLES

  Neither of my kids were spoon-fed. It isn’t that I avoided it. They did:

  So we waited until they were ready to handle it on their own.

  Crappy Boy played with his food when he was a baby. He’d smash bananas in his hands. He’d push blueberries around as if he were playing pool with his finger. He was also a dumper. And a thrower:

  He didn’t eat much.

  When Crappy Baby started eating food, things were different. He’d put a pea into his mouth. And another and another. He was eating! Then I realized:

  He was a chipmunk. He would put food in his mouth and tuck it in his cheek. He didn’t eat much, either.

  Eventually, he started using a spoon:

  And he began to learn the fine line between a bowl and a hat.

  Drinking with a straw was a learning process, too:

  But the best (and by that I mean the most frustrating) was the way Crappy Boy would tell us he was finished eating. He was talking already so he could have just told us. But instead…

  …he turned his arms into windshield wipers and cleared the entire tray with two swipes. And then cheerily said, “Done!”

  FEEDING TODDLERS

  After they get the hang of actually ingesting food, kids realize something. That they are in control. Crappy Baby loves this new power and wields it at every chance now.

  He wants yogurt. Or “fogurt.”

  So I open the fridge to find three identical containers of yogurt.

  He is peering in behind me and wants to pick.

  Yes, they are identical but I’m aware of exercising independence and all that parenting toddlers stuff.

  So I pause and let him pick. He grabs the one on the right.

  I begin to shut the fridge door, thinking we are done.

  Apparently, he has made a mistake. The yogurt on the right is no good.

  I put the offending yogurt back and he grabs the middle one.

  And throws it on the floor. This one is even more offensive.

  So I pick it up, put it back and he grabs the one on the left this time.

  And he throws himself on the floor, along with the yogurt. Clearly, the worst yogurt ever.

  When he calms down, he goes back to his original choice. The one on the right. A wise choice.

  He is happy with his final choice and he is ready to eat it. Except he can’t open it.

  So I do something stupid. I offer to help.

  Eventually, he will realize that letting me help sometimes is actually beneficial to him. Starting at around age four, this independence thing will do a 180. He’ll want me to do everything for him, even when he is perfectly capable of doing it himself. I’ve been told that this stage lasts until they move out. I’ll keep you posted.

  THE MOST EVIL FOOD FOR KIDS

  Crackers are the most evil food. Surprised? You probably thought I was going to say sugar, because it makes kids crazy.

  No. The answer is crackers.

  Kids like crackers. Parents like crackers because they aren’t candy, but are just as easy. I don’t trust crackers.

  Why? Because crackers create a mess that is larger in volume than the original cracker ever was:

  And nobody can explain how this happens.

  NEED EAT LIVE!

  Humans need to eat to stay alive. So when Crappy Boy doesn’t eat, ancient messages echo up from the recesses of my cavewoman mind:

  Even though I’m instinctually coded to freak out if my brood is not thriving, I don’t panic. (Thriving, of course, is defined mostly by eating vegetables.) I don’t panic because I know that there is a pendulum that swings between eating air and eating mountains. And it always keeps moving.

  During the air stage, he eats almost nothing. Prior favorite foods are snubbed. He will occasionally agree to eat, but he will finish quickly:

  But then, suddenly and without warning, he becomes an endless pit and can eat mountains of food:

  I enjoy it while it lasts because eventually it switches back. Growth spurt over. He resumes eating air and I resume quieting my inner cavewoman. “Need eat grow!”

  DINNER AT HOME

  After you have kids, relaxing dinner becomes an oxymoron.

  We keep trying, though, as we really do enjoy food and long for days when we get to once again, well, enjoy it.

  As soon as dinner starts, the requests start:

  So before I sit down I’m getting waters and various other dinner accessory requests. I ask several times if anyone needs anything else while I’m up. And then I return. And sit down.

  Which sparks more requests. Crappy Papa takes a turn to get things. (By the way, we do gently remind them about saying “please” and stuff. The manners police need not arrest us. I’m leaving out this part because it would take up the whole damn book if I left it in.) Finally, everyone is sitting and eating at the same time. Until:

&nbs
p; Water is spilled and I’m up again to get a towel. Then I clean up and put the towel in the kitchen. When I return and am about to sit down:

  More chaos. I’m up anyway so I might as well get the carrots. I bring the carrots to Crappy Boy. He takes one bite and then:

  They are both done, even though they really didn’t eat much. They run off to the family room. Finally, a moment of quiet. I take a couple bites. Only to be interrupted by:

  I shovel food in my mouth and drop my plate off in the sink as I head to the family room to play mediator.

  Finally, dinner is over. Then, as I’m washing the dishes:

  What, you thought I’d write a parenting book that was composed solely of my complaints about parenting? That would suck.

  I have to make room for some good stuff, too. Especially because I actually love being a parent. (Don’t tell anyone.) Honestly, even the bad stuff is good stuff when it isn’t happening. Remember that. Not that it will actually help you or anything. I just like saying “remember that” because it makes me sound all wise and stuff.

  MAXIMUM CUTENESS (OR, TINY LITTLE MANIPULATORS)

  At some point, all babies reach what I like to call the “Maximum Cuteness” stage.

  Maximum Cuteness officially starts at sixteen months and lasts until they are three and become assholes.

  Crappy Baby is in this stage right now.

  Children in the Maximum Cuteness stage have a superpower. Their superpower is the ability to defuse hostile situations. Like a mother’s anger, for example.

  It is lunchtime. The boys are set up with food. I run to the kitchen to see if we have soy sauce in the fridge. When I return, I find:

  Rice. Everywhere. He is actually tossing it into the air!

  I’m about to explode with frustration. How can he have made such a huge mess in three seconds? Did a single grain of rice even make it to his mouth? He is making a mess on purpose!

  My face looks like this:

  A serious hostile situation here.

  I interrogate him:

  He pauses in his throwing and notices that a hostile situation has developed.

  He deploys his superpower.

  Okay, this is a little cute. He thinks he is having a celebration.

  My brow softens. Waves of heated anger no longer radiate from my scalp.

  But I’m still annoyed.

  He reassesses the situation. Turns it up a notch.

  By saying something even more cute.

  Creative grammar always gets me. He must know this.

  A half smile even appears.

  He sees it and knows he is on the right path. He reaches for his big guns.

  And says he is sorry with those GIANT innocent eyes.

  And I’m reduced to a loving mother zombie:

  Every time.

  SHARING THE MAGIC

  The best part of parenting is watching kids experience cool stuff for the first time.

  We are at a friend’s house and they hear the tinkling sound of an ice cream truck for the first time ever. (No, we don’t have them in our neighborhood. It is tragic. We should move.)

  We run to the front yard and it turns out to be a dirty gray van. They are selling treats out of a cooler in the back. This is nothing like the fanciful, polka-dotted ice cream truck of my childhood.

  However:

  It is just as magical for theirs.

  THE COOKIE YEARS

  When Crappy Boy was two, he was obsessed with cookies.

  One weekend morning we were talking about what we were going to do for the day. Should we go to the park? Or the beach? We needed a plan. He told us his idea:

  While this was technically true, we did have frozen cookie dough in the freezer. Somehow, he knew.

  There was no denying it. Crappy Papa asked him if cookies were his ultimate goal for the day. He paused for a moment and then quickly added:

  We somehow knew to cherish the time when just a cookie and a balloon would bring pure joy. He got both that day.

  Another day he suddenly started laughing his head off and said:

  I asked him why (trying not to laugh) and while nodding enthusiastically, he explained:

  Oh. That explained everything.

  And yet another day we got home from the market and he looked down sadly and said:

  I asked him why he was grumpy. He replied:

  I asked him why he was sad and he looked up at me and said:

  Now don’t go thinking we gave him cookies for breakfast and stuff. No, we didn’t start doing that until he was at least two and a half. Doesn’t his obsession with them pretty much prove that he only got them as rare and special treats? I think it does. Besides, judgmental people are ugly. Just so you know.

  KNOCK, KNOCK! FIRST-EVER JOKES

  Crappy Boy was two when he made up his first-ever knock-knock joke:

  So hopeful, this joke.

  Crappy Baby was also two when he made up his first one:

  These will always remain my two favorite jokes of all time.

  WHAT FORTUNATE MEANS

  We went to the post office the other day and I gave my change to a homeless man who always sits outside with a sign. On this particular day, Crappy Boy asked why I gave him my change.

  At some point during the car ride home, I must have said something like “giving to those less fortunate” because hours later, that same night, he asks me what fortunate means.

  I know immediately he is still thinking about the homeless man we encountered earlier.

  He isn’t satisfied with a synonym like lucky, which I attempt at first. No, he needs a deeper explanation.

  So I try.

  I basically tell him that we are fortunate because we have a home and the homeless man might have to live in a cardboard box.

  For a moment, I think I did a pretty good job. But he latches onto the cardboard box idea too eagerly. Too enthusiastically.

  And by the look on his face I can tell he has the wrong idea.

  So I try again. Further explaining how it would basically suck to be homeless. Being an adult female, I mention not having a bathroom. Obviously.

  He asks me where the man goes to the bathroom to clarify.

  I could tell I had failed once again.

  So I get smarter.

  I think about who my audience is. And try again.

  Having no freezer in your cardboard box has lots of consequences.

  Bingo. He gets it. Fully understands the impact.

  So much so that he is downright concerned. And he comes up with his own charitable idea.

  And I say, “Sure, we can ask the man if he wants one.”

  So next time you see a little boy handing an ice cream treat to a homeless man at the post office…

  Well, that little boy just might be mine.

  And that is what fortunate means.

  PERFECT AND LOVELY

  I was getting ready for a rare night out and was putting on makeup in the bathroom. Crappy Boy was watching me, standing on a stool. He was two. I let him put on some lip balm. He asked me if he could also put on some mineral powder foundation and I said:

  He looked up at me, considered it for a moment and then said:

  And he gently patted my cheek. I felt beautiful.

  I’LL BE THE MAMA

  One afternoon when he was almost three, Crappy Boy said:

  I pretended to cry and asked for milk. He got it for me from his play kitchen. Then I continued to be a baby in the most annoying yet accurate manner possible:

  After that I asked for food, but didn’t want the toy carrot he brought. He ran back and forth getting me everything I wanted. He did a really good job being the mama.

  But after about five minutes he was tired out and he said:

  Damn straight. And don’t you forget it.

  Before I had them, I always had visions of exploring the world with my children. I love traveling! Just think of how worldly my children will be! They’ll learn firsthand about other cultures and e
at exotic foods! They’ll have a deep understanding of history and geography by visiting different continents! It will be the most amazing thing ever!

  Please don’t make me travel again.

  FIRST AIRPLANE TRIP

  Crappy Boy was just three months old when we took him on his first-ever airplane trip.

  As we walked toward the security line, he fell asleep all snug in his sling. He would sleep for at least a few hours.

  That is, he would have slept for a few hours.

  I took him out, put the piece of cotton fabric through the x-ray machine and walked through again, carrying the awakened and crying baby. But this time, I had really done something wrong.

  Only he wasn’t wearing shoes. He was wearing socks. I know the shoe rule! I wasn’t trying to be sneaky! I tried to point this out but I just got barked at even louder. So I pulled them off and tried to walk through holding the socks. Apparently, that is a huge crime. I thought I was going to be arrested. Instead, the TSA agent made me go back into the line, push through the very, very annoyed people and grab a bin to put the pair of wee socks in for them to scan.