Joys of Parenting: Toddler OCD

As someone that the sight of an open cabinet immediately creates within a spastic twitch in the cortex of my brain signaling - CLOSE, CLOSE, CLOSE, CLOSE, CLOSE, CLOSE - the fact that my daughter is a creature of habit bordering on psychosis should not come as shock. Since having children, the phrase “you get what you give” has been painfully defined. On one hand, I have an ultracompetitive sore loser who I much preach the concept of “fair play” to and the other a girl whose bedtime routine is an exercise in torture (and probably might be in Dante’s version of a modern Inferno).

A few weeks back, John once again came upstairs after putting Maggie to bed exasperated and shaking his head, reaching for the immediate beer. Since we have been alternating Owen’s bedtime routine, I said “You know, maybe we should share Maggie’s stories too?” (Usually I cook during this time). John responded, “Totally.” He then may have danced a bit and praised Jesus and smiled at me with a face of “You have no fucking clue what you are getting yourself into.” I realize this now, at the time I just though - what is the big deal?

Let me explain the big deal to you. After the kids finish their bath, and get dressed, at 6:45 p.m. it is time for Maggie to go to sleep.

Me: Maggie, it is time to go to bed.
Maggie: TWO MINUTES. TWO MINUTES. TWO MINUTES.
Me: Okay, two minutes.
(Two minutes pass).
Me: Mags, time to go to bed.
Maggie: TWO MINUTES!! I WANT TWO MINUTES!!
Me: Time for bed.
Maggie: I need to kiss Daddy. DADDY, DADDY, KISSES!
Me: Okay Maggie. Bed.
Maggie: OWEN, OWEN, kisses for Owen.
Owen: (Kissing Maggie). Good night Mags, I miss you. (Awww).
Me: Maggie, bed.
Maggie: I pick out my bottle.

She picks her bottle; we fill it with ice and water. The left side of my skull starts to throb. We head down the stairs to her room. She first goes to the computer to turn it on so that her Mozart playlist can be played (brainpower!), then she goes to her heater to turn it on, then she throws her bottle over her crib and climbs in. For those thinking: She is still in a crib? How old is this kid anyway? The answer is 3 in March and she sleeps from 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. every single day. She will be in that crib until she is 18 if I can help it.

Now, the stories. At this point in the adventure, Maggie chooses one book which is usually a Dora book. These books are long, and if you try to skip words, you are in trouble. Like last night when I skipped the part about crossing the sea on the pirate ship to avoid the snake and we did not say “Arrggggh”. So then we said it 18,000 times. Mama you forgot AAARRRGGGGGHHHHH. ARRGGHHHHHH. MAMA ARRRAGGHHHH. Mistake. After the first story this is the time when Maggie goes to the bathroom. We head in, where she turns on the light. I DO IT. Then sit and go pee and try to go poop. If she can’t poop she will strain until you are pretty sure an aneurysm will be had, and you are okay with this. She climbs off, flushes and turns off the light. POOP MAMA!

We exit the bathroom, wherein we have come to the touching shadows portion of the evening. “I TOUCH SHADOWS.” She proceeds to touch all the shadows in the room taking care not to step on the treadmill “This is Daddy’s Mama, IT’S NOT A TOY.” Thanks Maggie, I keep forgetting.

Back into bed for more stories. But first, “I NEED BIG ICE”. I get a piece of ice for her to chew on. THAT NOT BIG MAMA. I find another, my headache growing. Goodnight Moon is now read, a favorite since she repeats everything I say. This is a good moment, I almost love her again. That is until the Cheerios book. The Cheerios book has me wishing for death. How can a six page book seemingly take six hours? Oh, because she has to point out every color, and then pretend to take cheerios from one page to put them on another. Then count them, over and over, and then tell me which mice don’t have glasses. I need to get him some glasses Mama. TIME FOR BED MAGGIE. GLASSES MAMA. More placing of pretend cheerios. Until finally every mouse has glasses, every fish has bubbles, every car has wheels, and she agrees to end story time.

We next discuss her day. This is another part of the routine in which I kind of forget that I want to hang myself. She informs me who was her friend, who wasn’t her friend, how she sang Wheels on the Bus and the baby went Wah, Wah, Wah, how she pooped in the potty. The life of an almost three year old is quite compelling. I then tell her, “Good night Mags”. She then asks for a fist pump. We fist pump. Then we high five. Then we high five again. One more high five. I zip up the crib tent and start for the stairs, Maggie then pulls off her all of her blankets and says, “MAMA, MY BLANKETS!”. Shocked. As if she did not take then all off when I turned around. I go down, unzip to tuck her in. First one blanket (tuck, tuck, tuck), her baby blanket (tuck, tuck, tuck), her Dora fleece blanket (tuck, tuck, tuck). LOOK MAMA, DORA!!! AND BOOTS!!! Said happiness and joy, as if she does not say this every single freaking night. My love is back. Good night Maggie. Good night Mama. WHERE IS OWEN? Going to sleep. WHERE IS DADDY? Going to sleep. WHERE YOU GOING? I am going to sleep Maggie. DADDY TIRED. OWEN TIRED. MAMA TIRED. MAGGIE TIRED. Yep. Go to sleep, sweet dreams. NIGHT MAMA. Night.

As I climbed those stairs I know that I am free (to drink copious amounts of wine). And although torturous in its execution and not to mention high pitched cries of anguish for any transgression of the “routine,” I try to tell myself that this will be over someday, I will miss this, I will ache for this. But you know what? I really don’t think so, I really don't. At least she is cute. She has to be.

Tales From MUNI

Two weeks ago, I got aboard the NJudah and made my way to work. At Sunset Boulevard a girl sat next to me. Score, especially since she was rather thin and not smelly. I think we can agree that although we will sit next to the musky man muttering, we prefer a semi-normal being to share seat space.

Then it started. She started playing with her hair. Combing her hands through her long brown locks over and over until there was a stray single hair on her shirt, or pants or coat that she would carefully excise from its location. Bringing it forward, she would would flick her fingers until the hair fell between her knees to the floor. She was grooming herself as if she were a monkey the entire way until Montgomery Street, which was at least 50 minutes.

I sat reading my Kindle getting the side vision of what she was doing. As she succeeded in pick and flick number ten, I began to get annoyed, but more importantly disgusted. How can you possibly believe this is okay to do on public transportation? I thought it had to be a nervous tick of some sort, and then how sad it was this person will never marry. I wanted to shake her, but instead adjusted my vision so that it was impossible to bear witness to the abhorent action. I covered my eyes with my hand, essentially making a blinder. But every so often into my field of vision there it was - a hand releasings its find. Finally the speaker announced “Montgomery Station”, whack-a-doo off boarded and I breathe a sign of relief.

Is this normal? Was my reaction normal? I don’t know. Believe me for some reason things do get under my skin and make me insane - like open cabinet doors, or curtains, or vodka bottles. I kid, that last one is kind of awesome. But holy cow, Ms. Hair Extractor 2011, you top them all. Please do me the favor of never sitting with me again for I will gladly take psychotic bi-polar off his meds bearded clam smelling man, at least he's normal.

She Puts the Craze in Crazy

I can't really explain what happened to me last night, other than to say I had a momentarily separation from sanity and traveled down the harrowing road of the crazy. When finishing a Lost episode entitled "The Man From Tallahassee" I asked John "What happened to Locke's Dad, I can't remember?" Now John being John refused to tell me. Normally, I would sulk over to the computer, feign hatred and do a quick search to find the answer. However, this was not the case. Instead I was hijacked by lunancy and stormed off to the bedroom. As I drank my beer (Lagunitas Hairy Eyeball Ale, which I highly recommend) and watched the last DVRed episode of Nip/Tuck (which totally sucks ass this season and I can't believe I even waste my time watching it), I suddenly became quite mad. Note to readers - this was a question about Lost that could easily be answered by a 10 second Google inquiry. After Nip/Tuck was over, fueled by the Hairy Eyeball I made my way to John (who continued to watch Lost - which had me even more angry) and asked "Are you ready to tell me now." His response, "No." Under normal Cassie this would have elicited a laugh. Under psychosis Cassie this elicited my stomping back to the bedroom with a slammed door and bedtime. Long story short - as I closed my eyes, my anger grew, I made a scene, left the house for 5 minutes and had a crying fit. Again people, OVER LOST!!!! Now that I have reconnected with the sane, I am befuddled as to what happened last evening. I think that it could be hormones, but that is the excuse every girl makes but also one that is valid. But honestly, I think it was the following - sometimes as a girl you just need to cry and something as stupid as your husband jokingly not answering a question of yours can set you off onto that path. Which is what I think happened - hormones and hunger can often make a sane girl crazy. All is back to normal, but I do have a slight headache and feel like a complete ass. But I suck it up to the 1000 crazy things I get to do in this life with a free pass. Only 23 more to go, my 20s took up a lot.