When the Baby Yells, Yell Louder (Or Something)
Image by @sableflow on Unsplash
I am not a parent. I think it is important to note this.
But, have you ever watched one of those videos in which a child is having a meltdown-cry-fit and the parent just decides to double down and join the baby in the tantrum as a last resort?
We can assume by this point, the parent has tried the rocking and the cooing and the bribing and the begging, but all these super sane strategies have proved useless.
Ergo, the joining in the cry-yelling-pouty face-making.
In complete shock, the baby stops, unsure if he is being mocked or if the Grown human is…not okay? Then suddenly, the baby begins belly laughing with tear-soaked face, which merges seamlessly into hiccups, which makes the desperate delirious Grown laugh, which makes the baby laugh harder and on and on until one of them pees their pants.
Since I am not a parent and I don’t give advice, this is not parenting advice. This is a colorful attempt to convey exactly how I treat my brain when it is being a tired tantruming asshat.
I don’t mean tired like “sleepy.” I mean tired like an 18th century judgmental seamstress who waves dismissively during her neighbor’s tea party at the home’s decor. “Charlotte dear, those drapes are tired. Why don’t you try something that has not been done for 40 lifetimes and suits the day, hmm?”
My brain is often a tired jerk and I have found through a hilarious game of trial and error that sometimes I can do nothing else but yell back when it’s yelling and see what happens.
Don’t worry, I’ll go on.
I recently moved to a new state with my partner and we had not even unpacked our last boxes when he was scheduled for a work trip.
During his second week of work.
Completely unplanned.
To another country.
Anyway, I am a home body in that I like to be home and I have a body, and I enjoy very much when my body is in my home, preferably on the couch.
I also do not love driving in new places with new rules and different colors and angles for bike lanes and new directions that I haven’t yet been oriented to. Okay, I hate it. I do not like to feel lost or slow or in the way, but it seems sometimes there is no way to learn except to suck it up, let it be terrible, and do it*.
(*Should this be Nike’s new slogan??)
Because my partner, who has excellent navigation skills and can recall how to get to and fro a place he’s only gone once for the rest of forever, was gone, I knew I would have to wrangle my brain and figure it out if I wanted to leave the house that week.
In the same way it’s true that a fear of flying will not simply go away if you avoid flying, I knew that I would need to do the things that my brain protested loudly by screaming and throwing wet cheerios at me, by throwing them right back.
The first errand on my list was to get new batteries for my key fobs because they were dying and I risked being locked out of my car with each passing day. The second errand on my list, should I be so lucky to pass the requirements of the first errand, was to drop some donations at Goodwill.
Here is how it went:
My Brain: No! I don’t wanna! What if the dealership is in a bad area? We don’t know any of THE AREAS!!! What if we get lost! What if we get lost IN a bad area!! What if we get rear-ended? What if we rear-end someone? Does our car insurance even WORK here?!”
Me: OOOOKay.* (*wiping soggy cereal from my face) Now we must do the quest and do it NOW.
My Brain: LOL, Okay fine. You’re right, I was acting crazy.
I drove the 17 minutes on the new-to-me freeway to the dealership and parked where I thought I should under the sign that read, “Service.”
I remembered to bring both of my keys, thank Jesus, and walked inside to the Parts counter and waited. I waited because I was in the attendant’s peripheral vision and I thought it would be rude to ding the bell on the counter that said, explicitly, “Ring bell for service.” I do love the delicate ding of the bell and how it bounces back and forth afterwards like an excited gum drop, but I didn’t ring it because the man behind the counter was only 6 feet to my right and I was certain in my bones he knew I was there.
Turns out, he did not.
I waited about 90 seconds, unsure how to proceed in this standoff that was apparently only between me and me, until the man looked in my direction and said, “Oh, I didn’t see you! You should have rung the bell.”
My Brain: SEE? You soggy idiot.
Me: Shhhh!
The man continued, making sure he knew I was the problem and not him, “I’m here to help you but I don’t know that you need help if you don’t ring the bell.”
“Oh,” I said, trying to scooch the interaction toward over as fast as I could, “I didn’t want to be rude.”
I pulled both keys out of my pocket and set them on the counter as a hopeful prompt to never again talk about the bell.
The man came over and tested the batteries in my keys with a tiny sensor not unlike the one used in the game Operation to remove the waffle from the kidney.
He asked me if I was sure they didn’t work and I said, “Yes,” instantly wishing I had rung the bell and rung it aggressively.
“Did you get an error message when you turned your car on?”
“Yes,” I said again.
He then pointed one key in the direction of my car that was parked just outside the door, and I felt briefly accomplished that I had parked in the right spot.
Until my car alarm went off.
My Brain: SEE! We are an imposter and this errand was for naught and this man is going to be suspicious of our intellect. Now because of karma about the bell and sheer stupidity, we are for sure going to get a flat tire and then kidnapped because your boyfriend is away in CANADA and you just wanted to prove you could do a thing!!
Me: …Yeah.
The man pointed the second key at my car and the car did nothing, as I was telepathically begging it.
See!? I shouted back at the ass-brain.
The man said that one battery was dead and the other was dying and agreed to change them both, as I had already requested and offered to exchange money for.
He pried the batteries out of each key as he asked me where I was from and told me about his two huskies. I told him about my travels and my dog-child. The cashier behind me at a small desk near the door chimed in and said she, in fact, has two cats. I turned around and smiled and nodded, confused where all this was going.
When all was said and done, I paid the $17 to the lady with the cats and got back into my car with my functioning two keys. I pulled out in the direction of the one-way arrows and proceeded to get lost in the parking lot full of smashed cars and new cars and aisles that narrowed and narrowed some more until all I could do was turn around and try a different way, twice.
My Brain, again: SEE?! You’re going to get stuck and then dead!
Me: EXCUSE ME. This is not my fault, this is a fire hazard! And everyone is looking at me so shut up!
I navigated out of the parking lot maze hell and decided to double down and make the second errand to donate the boxes of things in my backseat that had no home in our new place.
My Brain: Dear God, WHY?
Me: I don’t WANT to do this, but you are being a noisy dramatic garden gnome so we’re doing this.
Although I am certainly committed to yelling back at my stupid baby brain in an effort to make it realize how ridiculous it is being, I am not a complete lunatic. The drive to Goodwill was eerily sketchy.
The Goodwill parking lot itself was sketchy.
The heebie jeebies were crawling up my spine like fire ants.
Me to Brain: You were right this time.
Brain: Duh.
I rerouted my maps back home and made it without incident.
I had been gone less than an hour and though I had only succeeded with 50% of my intended errands, I went.
I didn’t let the tantruming win.
I joined in and we both had a good laugh, then a nap.
Yours in “Parenting,”
Emily Rose // Miss Magnolia