Gaslighting for fun and profit.

I think this baby is gaslighting me. Our heavenly Wiki teaches: Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse. It uses persistent denials of fact which, as they build up over time, make the victim progressively anxious, confused, and unable to trust his or her own memory and perception.

Since the little noodle (II) can't really deny or confirm facts in his current location, he has taken instead to poisoning me with my own hormones.

Last night after writing that cheery post, I spent like an hour slobbering and bawling to J about how I wish I was better at everything and how guilty I feel that I get insane with boredom some days. I know there are parents out there who would love to get as much time with their offspring as I do, and mostly I do enjoy it. Yesterday was rough. Part of it was the newfound skillz Toby decided to work on: whining and getting his feelings hurt. So he would whine and I would say, "Please ask me for what you want. How do you ask nicely?" and he would say, "Iiiiiice? Ice? Ice! Iiiiice?" so I'd say, "What word do you need to use? I don't like it when you whine like that." and he would say, (pause to inhale all the molecules in the kitchen and a few from the front hallway) "waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh".

Other times he'd say, "Water? Waaahdur?! Water!!" and I'd say, "It's right there, by your toybox." and he'd inhale half the living room and 1/3 of my left leg and go, "waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh."

And then I'd poke myself in the brain with one of our barbeque skewers.

He's really an easy kid. That's the problem. If I can't be patient with a generally rockstar, laid-back, easygoing kid, what is the matter with me? And how am I going to do right by two or three of these units?

So this morning I resolved to take it easy, to just try and enjoy my day and to not miss any of the good stuff. I got up early, showered even, and then went in to change the kiddo for the day. At one point, as I bent down to get something he had knocked off the table, he kicked me full force squarely in the eyeball. It's by far the most painfull thing he's done to me, and it actually made me cry like the wacko mom I'm starting to think I am. I didn't reprimand him much because it was a semi-unintentional accident, except to blubber, "no kicking, Toby- see, it hurts Mama." He looked at me like he was trying not to laugh.

Within a few minutes we were back on track giggling at a book, but there are days like this where in the end I don't know if I'm just being a completely horrible wussy mom to even feel this sorry for my sad pregator self. The stupid thing about hormones is they take something minor that legitimately bothers you and turn it into International Huge Crapfest 2007.

I've read that they used to just knock ladies out, give them a c-section and wake them up to their new bundles of joy. I wonder how far in advance the knocking-out part can take place... say, 4 or 5 months?