The BOSS OF ME blog

When we were both working, my husband’s responsibility was to get our toddler up and ready to go to her day home each morning. Now that I’m not gainfully employed, this delightful job is all mine. Wrangling my toddler out of the house each morning is daunting; I’d liken it to ‘ninja jellyfish wrestling,’ if there were such a thing.

I cannot even contemplate getting more than one toddler out of the house by a particular time of day. Did you know that a group of jellyfish is called a smack? As in, ‘Just smack me in the face,’ or ‘I must be on smack,’ if I so much as even contemplate going anywhere with a group of toddlers. It’s probably a good idea to steer clear of a smack of jellyfish too. The day home mom has my respect, my admiration and my money. You could say she’s a professional ninja jellyfish wrestler. She wrestles an entire smack of ninja jellyfish every single day. It completely boggles my mind, so I need to move on.

Huh?

It’s been several months since our darling little cherub spent her mornings cooing lovingly at her Daddy as he got her ready each day. To say the morning routine has changed slightly since the ‘Daddy Days’ would be a colossal and gigantic understatement, so let’s go with epically. It changed epically. And unlike a jellyfish, my toddler has a brain and plays favourites. Each day she’s learning new words, dance moves and other guerrilla warfare tactics to try out on me. Daddy is clearly the preferred parent, but it’s no holds barred against The Mommy. Our morning typically goes something like this…

A day in the life of an amateur Ninja Jellyfish Wrestler

Dressed for the day and wearing war paint, I slowly open my toddler’s door. I turn on the lamp with the soft glow bulb and gently rub her back to rouse her from her slumber. She rolls over, rubs her eyes, smiles, and then ninja flips into the opposite corner of her crib. “Game on!” I think to myself as I contemplate my next move. I clumsily reach out for her in the dim light. I hear her snicker at my clumsiness. Next, using moves I suspect she picked up from her day home dance sessions; she successfully evades my grasp. Changing tactics, I blind her by turning on the glaring overhead lights and plucking the little squawker from her crib. I shove a pacifier in her mouth, which generally buys me 30 seconds until the next outburst. I then prolong the distraction by yelling “Na na nanananana, Na na nanananana” to the tune of something I pray resembles the “Chicken Dance.” Because I know she, like most of us, can’t resist the overpowering urge to tuck her hands into her tiny armpits, flap her elbows and wiggle her diaper-clad butt. In the few brief seconds it takes her to remember where to put her hands, I wrestle her into a shirt, overalls and socks. We then make it down the stairs, through two baby gates and into her high chair without incident.

As my toddler dishes out garbled trash talk, gibberish slurs and today’s rules of engagement, I make her breakfast. Stuffing her tiny pie hole with handfuls of waffles slathered in cream cheese, she quickly satiates her morning hunger. I pretend she’s a gorilla at the zoo and try not to make direct eye contact. She’s relentless with her taunts; pointing her right index finger at my face as she pulverizes a blueberry with her left, as if to say, “You’re next.” Then, like someone who knows how to talk, and wants to make a statement, she extends her arm out, finally catches my eye, and releases a sippy cup full of milk onto the floor. “So that’s how you’re going to play it!” I proclaim and savour a quiet moment as my hand covers her mouth with a warm damp cloth, swiping cream cheese remnants from her face. We then make our way over to the couch to get her winter gear on and I brace myself for the inevitable resistance.

With the practiced control of a jellyfish on muscle relaxants, my toddler squirms out of my arms and onto the floor and licks it. I think to myself, “Gross! What the fuck is she doing? Wait, who am I to judge? I’ve eaten scraps off the floor that were in her mouth first. That’s definitely grosser.” I quit thinking because it’s getting me nowhere and try again. Intent on destroying my hearing and possibly my eyesight, she shrieks like an eagle and rakes my face with her talons. “Crap,” I think to myself, “I forgot to pin her arms down, and trim her nails.” I finally position her on my lap when a distinct and penetrating odour assaults my sense of smell. I deduce that during our fight to the death (aka, putting tiny little winter boots on), she’s released her bowels. Upon confirming that my toddler has indeed shit her pants, I call an uneasy truce. She glares at me as if trying to convey, “This isn’t even close to being over.” Palatable apprehension and dread creep through my very being as I carry the foul-smelling toddler back upstairs to the changing table. I gently lay her on the table and think to myself: “Why the fuck did I put this menace in overalls this morning?”

With our uneasy truce tenuously intact, we complete the begrudging diaper change. We head back downstairs and possessing all of the grace of a moose in heat; we manoeuvre back through the baby gates and begin our fight to the death anew. I shove my toddler’s flailing tentacles into her coat and boots and throw a hat on her bald little head. Her mittens are not in the usual spot and I fruitlessly scan the surrounding area for the little fuchsia knit hand sacs. Succumbing to the fact that her mitts are ‘missing in action,’ we leave the house. I stick my tongue out at the restrained toddler in the rearview mirror and we drive over to the day home and make our way inside. As the day home mom and I discuss the all-important meteorological conditions and advanced ninja jellyfish wrestling techniques, my darling toddler delivers the final coup de grâce by dramatically pulling off her hat to reveal her lost mitts. With the final death blow to my intellect, she solves the mystery of the missing mitts and reveals to all that I am, in fact, an idiot.

THE END