The discipline in this house just got kicked up a notch. Please follow along as we go through the timeline of a tantrum.

Cordy has entered the phase of the mega-tantrum over the last few weeks. As I write this, she is currently in her chair, screaming at the top of her lungs, with short pauses to cough, catch her breath, and open her eyes just enough to peek and see if I’m paying attention. We’re on minute 17 currently, with no signs of slowing. I’d categorize this a Class 4 Tantrum – screams over 110 decibels, with dangerous objects flying through the air. Seek shelter at once.

What led to this breakdown of social grace? I turned off the TV. That led to kicking and smacking me, and I told her no and gave her a time out in her crib. After that 2 minute time out, I got her dressed for the day, which resulted in more kicking and throwing of items. The final straw was having a heavy metal dump truck thrown at my head. Now, I don’t know about you, but nearly having a large metal toy clock me in the head qualifies as a serious red flag penalty in my rule book.

I picked her up once again, and this time designated a time out chair, where she is currently still screaming. (We’re on minute 21 now, if you’re keeping track.) After the requisite 2 minutes, I went back to her and told her she could get up, and reminded her that we don’t throw or hit or kick. But she chose to stay there and scream. OK, have it your way, kid.

The battle of wills is clear here, and knowing that this is just the beginning is a tiring thought. Luckily, I can withstand high pitched screams and I can deal with her thinking I’m a horrible mommy for these punishments. I know I’m not hurting her, and I know she needs to learn what is socially acceptable and what is not. But it does get tiring to hear the screaming continue for 28 minutes, which is what we’re up to right now. (I just offered her a sippy of milk or a banana, which she dramatically refused. Silly child – she needs to learn a little more forethought in picking which cause she chooses to hunger strike for.)

I also learned today that it may be time for the toddler bed. When I came in to get her from her crib during the first 2 minute time out, she had thrown everything out of her crib, and had one leg hooked over the side, trying to figure out how to shift her weight up and over the crib rail. We’re very close to a fall from the crib.

It’s now 36 minutes in, and she has returned to the crib after flinging a book at me. She will no longer sit in her chair, and the crib is the only other place to keep her semi-confined and out of pitching distance. Do other parents go through tantrums this long, or does my daughter just have unusual endurance for this type of activity?

I know I could stop all of this just by turning on the TV and putting one of her favorite shows on, but I feel like I’d be caving in if I did that. I don’t want her to think she can act this way and get what she wants. In fact, that’s the opposite of what I want her to learn. I don’t want her to scream and cry in Macy’s when she’s 21 because she can’t afford the Ralph Lauren dress she wants, or throw her water glass at a waiter if informs her they’re out of lobster bisque. Enduring this now pays off in the long term.

50 minutes, and the tantrum is over. Finally. Cordy calmed down in the crib, and is now sitting with me eating her snack and smiling, even if her face is a little puffy. I still can’t get her to say the word “sorry”, but I guess that will come with time.

The storm has passed, and we didn’t even need help from FEMA. Now if you’ll excuse me, my head is calling for some Advil.

Has there been a Hurricane Cordelia yet?

We had a minor crisis this evening: Blue was missing.

Cordy has become very attached to her Blue’s Clues beanie, and somehow during the day it had disappeared. Luckily, she didn’t seem concerned about it, but the adults in the household were scrambling to find this fuzzy comfort object before bedtime, when she would surely be looking up at us and asking, “Ware Bwue?”

I heard the report from Aaron as I drove home. My mom didn’t take Cordy out of the house today, so Blue had to be somewhere in the house. I was able to leave work a little early today, so I made it home just before bedtime. Cordy smiled at me as she finished her french fries, but I quickly sat down next to her to start the inquisition.

“Cordy? Where’s Blue?” I asked her. She’s a smart kid – she has to know where she last left her best friend in the entire universe.

“Ware Bwue?”

“Yes, sweetie, ware Bwue…I mean, where’s Blue? Where is she?”

“Where ih shheee?” The conversation was bordering on a Who’s on First schtick, so I stood up and started looking around. Cordy, of course, followed me.

I tried the usual spots – in the toy box, behind her slide, under the chair, in the couch cushions, under the kitchen table, in a kitchen cabinet, etc. As I checked out each possible hiding spot, Cordelia followed behind me, calling out “Bwuuuuee?”

As I walked into the dining room, Cordy said “chaaiuh”. I looked on all of the chairs, asking her again where Blue might be. And once again, the only answer I got in return was “Ware Bwue?”

Finally, I gave up. Thoughts of her screaming in her crib filled my head, but I could not find this stupid toy. I wondered if a cat had run off with it, or if Cordy had thrown it in the trash can. Either way, Blue was gone, and tonight she was going to have to go to bed Blue-less.

I crouched down to Cordy’s eye level and leveled with her. “I’m sorry, baby, but I can’t find Blue. We’ll try to find her in the morning, OK?”

Cordy gave me a serious, thoughtful look for a moment. She then turned around, walked two steps over to the phone stand, opened the cabinet door at the bottom of the stand, and pulled out Blue. “Bwuuuueee!” she exclaimed triumphantly, with a large smile.

Someday, when mommy is in the looney bin, Cordy will read this and understand why.

Many of us want to be women who can have it all. Its 2006, feminism is here and is in full swing! We can be pretty much anything we want to be! (OK, maybe not president…yet.) Women are not limited to being only stay at home mothers or having “care careers” of nursing, teaching, or secretarial work. Our horizons are broad now, and more women than ever are entering fields once thought to be dominated by men: engineering, business, science, etc. We can be married, have kids, do volunteer activities, and have a full time job at the same time.

So if I can have it all now, why do I sometimes feel like I have nothing?

This week is killing me. I just started a new half-quarter class for my nursing school requirements, and it is one of the few I can’t take online. So I’m in class four days a week, from 8:00am-12:30pm. Three of those days, I have just enough time to drive to work, where I stay until 8:00pm. Then I hurry home to deal with domestic duties, work on my school homework, deal with the insurance crap from the break-in, and maybe get some time to blog. By the time 11:00pm comes, I know I need to get to sleep, but my mind is still racing with all of the things I need to do for the next day. Eventually I drift off to sleep after midnight, only to wake at 5:00am (when Aaron wakes, even though he tries to be quiet, it often wakes me up for the day). Lather, rinse, repeat, collapse.

I hate to whine about this. After all, I’m only working a part-time job, which I know is a luxury some don’t have. There are many women out there putting in full time work, while still going to school part-time and taking care of their families. How do they do it?

The class I’m taking is only six weeks long, and after that I’ll have a little more time again. But for the moment there are three days a week when I only get to see Cordy for 30 minutes in the morning, as I take her to wherever she is spending the day. By the time I get home, she’s already in bed for the night.

It was because of scenarios like this that I quit my full time job a year ago. We had Cordy in daycare at the time, and five days a week we would have about an hour in the morning to spend time with her (while also getting ready for the day), and then an hour in the evening with her before her bedtime. Realizing that forced me even deeper into a depression that had gripped me since I was pregnant.

I’m thankful I get to spend more time with her now. But I’m still juggling all of the responsibilities I have, trying not to drop any of them, but knowing that I can’t give equal attention to everything. Eventually I’m going to lose a grip on one of them, and I’ll either drop one, or they’ll all come crashing down on me.

During times like this, I sometimes wish I didn’t have it all. Maybe life would have been easier if I was expected to be a housewife raising my children after I got married. Sure, I’d be entirely responsible for the housework, but right now I’m responsible for half of it, and my half is not doing so well at the moment.

Don’t worry, I’m not advocating a return to 1950’s Norman Rockwell America, so you can get your panties out of a bunch, Linda Hirshman. For one, I don’t think that kind of reality is viable anymore. The American economy practically demands a 2-income household today, or at the very least a large one-income household, which most people don’t have, and which many in power right now would prefer to keep that way. (Hey Congress, what about that minimum wage increase, eh?)

And I’m thankful women have all of the opportunities available to us today. We can go to school, we can be educated, and we can make the choice to work and raise a family at the same time. We can even choose to not marry and not have children! I’m thankful to be educated, and to have the freedom I do to write whatever I want and be given (hopefully) the same respect as a man. These are all Good Things, and we should be grateful to the women who came before us for carving out these freedoms for us.

But when is it all too much? What do we do when we realize we have it all, but we’re so far in over our heads that we’re drowning and there appears to be no way out? Where do we draw the line and say enough is enough – we can’t handle anymore? How do we decide what we must give up for our happiness and sanity?

The guilt I feel while writing this is tremendous. I am the modern Super Woman with family and career, and I should be ashamed for not wanting it all. I want more time to spend at the park. I want to go to Mommy & Me classes. I want time to work out and take care of myself. I want my daughter, and any other children we have, to grow up knowing that mommy can be counted on.

My mother was a Super Woman by necessity – divorced, struggling to work as much as possible to support me, torn between working extra hours and spending time with me, and often gone when I needed her the most. I don’t blame her for that, because she was making the best choices she could for us, but the thought of following in her footsteps and having to constantly choose between work and Cordy sometimes haunts me.

Just last night I told Aaron that I thought he was so much stronger of a person than me, because he can handle working full time, doing theatre in the evenings, and still make time for Cordy and me and his share of the housework. He must have more fortitude than I do. Poor man – I know he’s going to read this, and I’m sure my constant harping on this topic probably makes him feel bad, although that isn’t my intention. (The plight of men trying to have it all is an entirely different post.)

Aaron is a good provider for the family, an excellent husband and father, and probably puts up with far more from me than he should. I’m sure when we married he never imagined that once we had children I would go on an “I want to be a SAHM!” whine-fest. After all, we both planned to work, and I planned to continue my telecommuting job so I could work full time and stay home full time. But things don’t always turn out how we plan them. I can only hope that once our children are in school (or at least preschool), I will be happy to work full-time again, bring home the big bucks, and give him the freedom to quit his job to pursue his talent in theatre full-time.

In the meantime, something has to give. I just don’t know what.

A few weeks ago we were invited to a BBQ in the Middle of Nowhere, OH. (OK, stop laughing, there are places in Ohio that aren’t the middle of nowhere.) The friends hosting the gathering lived about 10 minutes from a very small town, on a sprawling farm with an enormous backyard. It was a great place to host a bunch of people, have a bonfire, and cook lots of food.

Cordy was in a particularly cranky mood that day, and we weren’t sure why at first. Sure, she has plenty of days where she’s cranky just for the sake of being cranky, but this wasn’t one of those days. Like parents who learn the meanings behind different cries from their baby, we are sometimes able to tell if she’s cranky for a reason or just because it’s Tuesday.

During lunch her mood darkened even more, and she started crying while eating. Bite, chew, chew, scream!, chew, swallow, bite, chew, scream! Our warrior princess would never let a cranky spell get in the way of her mealtime, so something had to be wrong.

A quick swipe of my finger in her mouth revealed all. Her 2-year molars were just under her gums! Those rough, rocky teeth were surely the cause of her discomfort.

Cordy had probably forgotten her other teething experiences. All of her other teeth came in one big rush, between 9 and 18 months, and often 2 or 4 at a time. So naturally she had forgotten how to deal with teething.

I searched the diaper bag for something to numb the pain. Oragel? Nope. Tylenol? Nope. Motrin? Nope. Damn.

There was one other mother with a toddler there, so I asked her if she had any of the above items, but she didn’t. We both packed supplies for diaper blowouts, rashes, and other emergencies, but nothing for teething.

It was at that point that Cordy had reached her limit of tolerance with her teeth. She threw herself onto the concrete garage floor and screamed in misery. The nearest town was at least 10 minutes away, and I don’t think they had a grocery or a drugstore. I tried giving her something cold to chew on, but she swatted it away several times. We were out of luck. I frantically looked around for anything to ease Cordelia’s pain.

And that’s when I spied the bottle of Glenlivet 18 on the table nearby.

I’ve heard the stories. Scotch on a baby’s gums helps with teething pain. Some say rum instead, and others brandy, but the story is generally the same. People in my grandmother’s generation say they used it all the time with their babies. I know my mom turned out OK, despite her baby boozing days. Other friends at the gathering, who are the parents of teenagers now, said they had used the same treatment on their children as babies.

Then I thought to myself: Am I a bad mother for doing this? I’m considering giving my child scotch – am I crazy? Sure, it’s good single-malt scotch, so at least she won’t develop a taste for the bad stuff, but am I going to become a pariah for this?

I looked back and forth between the bottle of scotch and Cordy’s screaming, writhing figure on the floor for about 2.4 seconds. And then I grabbed the bottle, stuck my finger in the opening, and tipped it upside down.

Aaron held Cordy still while I put my scotch-flavored finger in her mouth and rubbed her gums. At first, she screamed even louder, but quickly she stopped and gave me the strangest look, as if to say, “WTF?” I looked back at my friends uneasily, as they peered over my shoulder to see what the results would be. I soaked my finger one more time and applied it to the other side of her mouth, with no protest this time.

It worked. She stopped crying and laid on the floor with a puzzled look on her face. I stood up and returned the bottle to the table. The other toddler mom in the crowd laughed and told me Cordy’s eyes were fixed on the bottle as I walked back to the table. A few minutes later, Cordy stood up and went back to her snacks, eating without any screaming in-between this time.

Before you go calling child protective services, please note that the amount of scotch she was given was very small. Just enough to wet my finger, honestly, and just enough to numb her gums. I’m not even sure if it worked to numb her gums, or if she was simply shocked into silence by the strange flavor I put in her mouth. Either way, it worked, so I’m not complaining. She was in pain, all other options had failed, and it was the only thing I could think of at the moment.

(For those preparing an angry response to this, you should know: this will not be a regular thing. It was a one-time use only, and now that we know she’s teething again, the infant Motrin is back in the diaper bag. We will continue to use Oragel or Motrin in the future. Besides, Glenlivet 18 is expensive stuff, and we can’t afford to keep high-end single-malt scotch around for Cordy.)

Tonight Aaron and I were given our “time off for good behavior” pass, and my aunt watched Cordy so we could spend some time at the Dublin Irish Festival sans child. We were free to mingle with other adults, and no one knew we were of the breeder type!

We went to the festival last night as well (with Cordy), but tonight Gaelic Storm was playing, and we knew the loud music combined with a start time after Cordy’s bedtime would result in no fun for any of us, or anyone around us.

The concert was great, but before it started the lady behind the drinks counter was kind enough to smack me in the face with how old I am, or at least how old I look. I swear every word of this conversation is 100% true:

Server: (talking to woman in front of me) Ok, that will be two drink tokens, and I need to see your ID.

Woman: Oh, you need to see my ID? Uh, OK, hold on. (shows ID, server studies it)

Server: Yeah, we’re required to check ID for everyone.

(Woman takes her drink and walks away)

Me: I’d like a black cherry cocktail, please. (I start to take out my wallet to show my ID)

Server: (getting the drink) That will be two drink tokens, please.

Me: (handing her tokens as she turns away) Uh, don’t you need to see my ID? (holding up wallet)

Server: Oh. (not even glancing at ID) Yeah, sure, you’re fine. Next!

Can I say I felt a wee bit offended? Apparently even though they’re required to check ID on everyone, I clearly look too old to bother needing mine checked! I got a good look at the woman in front of me, and I would bet high that she’s older than me. After getting my drink, we proceeded to meet up with a friend and some of her friends, and quizzed each of them on how old they think I look. None said anything higher than 23, so adjusting for being nice (I’d adjust even higher if they were my friends, but most of them I had met for the first time that night), I’d say they thought I looked 25 or 27. Clearly still young enough to be carded, right?

So please, if your job involves any sort of bartending or serving of alcohol, be kind to the women who approach your counter, and ask to see their ID. I don’t care if they’re 60, with grey hair and a walker – ask anyway, and maybe throw in a comment or two about how they don’t look their age at all. It’ll not only flatter them, it’ll help you earn better tips, too.

As for me, I think it’s time for a deep moisturizing skin treatment before bed. Ugh.