Crazy for You

I am officially the Wicked Bitch of the West.

I was attempting to talk on the phone tonight when Elfie yelled down from the top of the stairs, crying about her “throat hurting.” In my defense, she’d been running around like a chipmunk on speed and nitrous oxide just 2 minutes earlier, and this was the second time she’d interrupted me, so I wasn’t exactly primed for sympathy. Our exchange went something like this:

“Elfie, what’s wrong?”
“My throat is hurt.”
“Your throat is hurt. Did your throat hurt 10 minutes ago?”
“Yes. . .”
“So your throat has been hurting, but you decided to just start crying about it now. Okay. Then I’m sure it’s going to keep hurting, so go put your pajamas on and brush your teeth. I’ll be up in a minute.”

As if that weren’t bitchy enough, it turns out her neck was actually the thing that was hurt because her brother had left two bloody scratch marks in it. And she just sucks at telling time. So, mystery solved.

I fluctuate between Nice Mommy and Cranky Mommy so quickly that I have no idea how my kids keep up. For a long time, I was worried about what a terrible affect this was having on their development — how they’d be growing up in close proximity to someone from whom they really had no idea what to expect when it came to a reaction to any given situation. Example: child spills orange juice. Mother’s reaction: 1) makes up funny rhyming song about how sticky the house is while quickly and calmly cleaning up juice; 2) reassures child that everyone makes mistakes after enlisting him or her to help clean up juice, thus using it as a teaching moment; 3) flips out and mops entire floor, all the while lecturing entire family on lack of personal responsibility and culture of laziness that is permeating their home and society at large.

So, yes, my family lives with the Three Faces of Sunny. But I’ve reconciled this by convincing myself that I’m preparing my little charges for all of the other crazy people they’ll meet in the world. Newt, for instance, can already “handle” me. That’s right. My “autistic” child knows how to deal with me when I’m in one of my frantic freak-outs. To some extent, I think this may have added to his therapy (and, no, I’m not joking here). Social cues like “happy” and “sad” are pretty easy. “Pissed off with a smile on your face” is a little more complex.

Newt was six. It was a typical morning — I was ticked off at the kids, Elfie was screwing around in the car, and I was ready to lose it. When we got to school, Newt sort of cajoled her out of the car, and then he took my hand as we walked to the playground. Not a big deal to the outside observer, but Newt had been running ahead of us since he’d become a “big kid.” I’d never said anything about how he never held my hand anymore, but he obviously knew it was something I liked. So there he was, holding my hand and asking me casual little questions about what I was doing that day. I’d say it was odd if it wasn’t so effective.

Fast forward a year and I’ve lost my cell phone. I’m searching frantically through the car before we go to Elfie’s ballet lesson. Can’t find it and I’m completely stressed. As Newt and I hang out while Elfie dances, he sits next to me, holds my hands, looks into my eyes, and says, “I’m sorry you lost your phone. Yeah. I’m really, really sorry.” Doesn’t try to fix it or say he knows how I feel. I swear, the boy has better instincts than 99% of adult men. Clearly it’s a matter of survival of the fittest — even in the micro-population of our house. Because apparently on some level, there’s nothing better for a child’s development than a mother who is street-rat crazy.