Effects

Rather than detailing your behavior, I shall instead list here the effects of your behavior and let you guess about the causes.

1. It is 7:30 and Mommy is on glass #2 of wine.

2. At 5:15pm you were in your highchair, facing toward the T.V. instead of the dinner table, eating cheesy noodles and watching a PBS cartoon show called Word Girl while Daddy and I mindlessly stuffed bad Chinese food into our faces.

3. At 5:30pm I gave you a fortune cookie. At 5:32 I realized that the fortune itself had disappeared. At 5:33 I realized I didn't care and actually had a vague hope that perhaps ingesting the fortune directly might permit a small bit of wisdom to enter your bloodstream.

4. This afternoon, I sat on the couch crying with the vacuum on beside me and my fingers plugging my ears to drown out the sound of you screeching.

5. Intermittently, I considered exactly how long you might last if I placed you snugly in a snow bank. Then I thought about jail and how much time I would have to read books in my cell.

6. I have spent the last twenty minutes googling things such as "sleep disturbance fifteen months," "night waking toddler," and "why won't my child fucking go to sleep." Varying levels of success.

7. I found washing lemon sauce and deep fried chicken bits off our dinner plates to be relaxing and luxurious.

8. I prayed for patience.