Nice Events

When I was single I was really nice. When I got married I was just nice. Now that I am a mom, "nice" is more of an event. My mom was always nice. She still is very nice.

The other day I went to Target for several important reasons and many frivolous ones. The important reasons were for such things like diapers, toilet paper, food for my baby, etc. The frivolous reasons were for such things like a fresh cup of Starbucks located conveniently at the Target I selected to go to (I would like to kiss whoever thought of that idea), clearance racks, ok, more clearance racks and anything cute. Oh, I must not forget I was in dire need of half and half for the fresh cups of coffee I make at home. The problem with the important reasons is that they are boring. There is no way around this. For example, there is nothing fun about reaching for a bundle of toilet paper and hearing the "thud" as it hits the cart. It's not particularly cute.

Target offers other problems for me. As I swing about the aisles of the store, coffee in one hand, cart in the other, thoughts of real importance swing away from my little brain ( I wonder if my brain is cute. Anything little usually is). I lose focus. I forget that I need things like diapers. If it's not cute, smells pretty, or absolutely frivolous my brain can't seem to think about it. The only type of information it can contain is everything I don't really need, like scented candles or half n' half.

The other problem that comes with Target is that I lose track of time. Time simply does not exist when I'm sipping coffee and looking at cute stuff. Not good.

Not good at all. I left Target in a tizzy. Usually, I can't stand the store by the time I leave, my brain is simply overtaken by over stimulation. Even still, I was nice to the cashier. When I got back into the car I realized that my baby should have already eaten lunch and should have been sleeping peacefully in her crib with a little drool drizzle on her cheek. How did this happen?

Well, naturally, as any baby should, mine started to scream. I reached for the fresh Target bag and realized that I purchased NO food for her, nothing. It didn't help matters much when I realized that I had remembered to buy half n' half. Home was about 500 miles away. My happy, swinging, coffee drinking mood took a sudden fall. It fell to right about where I feel like a horrible mom. So I called my husband. I told him this, that I am not a good mom. I wondered out loud if I was cut out for this or not. I said these things in kind of a loud voice, as it were. I like to call it venting. It's a nice term and it gives me permission not to be. I glanced at my half filled coffee cup. My brain seemed so little. The steady screaming was getting to me.

I opened the front door and my husband appeared out of nowhere! I almost screamed it scared me so much. I thought he was at work. I felt this presented an excellent opportunity to blame someone or something. I did what seemed most natural, even right at the time. I picked him to blame. Somehow being alarmed that he was home, adding to my already frenzied state, seemed to be a lovely segue into connecting him to my feeling of incompetence, and more importantly, it made him responsible for that feeling. I like blaming sometimes. It moves the guilt around to places that are far away from me. Ok, maybe the "place" is usually my husband. That is never nice.

I don't know how my mother was so nice all my growing up years and beyond. We certainly gave her plenty of reasons not to be nice to us. But she always was. Always. This is rather irritating because I can't blame my childhood for my lack of niceness. My sister-in-law says that people have it all wrong when they say that it's more spiritual to be single. It's not. You can be selfish without knowing it and therefore feel no guilt because of it. You get married and the opportunities to reveal your selfishness come up all the time. You become a parent and those opportunities multiply by the minute.

These days my nice "events" seem to get smaller and smaller. I guess I can only blame myself. That can be a problem, however. Blaming myself is not fun and definitely not cute. It's hard. My brain doesn't like it. It's little remember? Who knows, maybe if I practice taking the blame more often my brain will grow a little and those nice "events" will last longer. I'm going to work on that. I don't know, maybe another cup of Starbucks coffee will help.