#tbt Making Oatmeal
[I wrote this in January 2012 on thisblueangel.com]
Oatmeal & Alcohol - first published in 2012 on thisblueangel blog
This morning, I put H.’s breakfast bowl of oatmeal in the microwave, because she said she wanted it heated up. She proceeded to scream at me because I hadn’t let her push the buttons on the microwave. When I told her I hadn’t known that she wanted to push the buttons and she could push them now, she screamed that she wanted to push them the first time. We finally agreed that she could reheat the bowl. She pushed the buttons. But when I put her bowl of breakfast oatmeal down on the table, she screamed that it was too close to her. I moved it. She screamed because now it wasn’t in front of her on the table. Then she got up to jump up and down, to emphasize her point. When she almost hit her head on an open drawer, I moved to close the drawer, which infuriated her further, and she laid down on the floor and let the floor have it. When I asked her what was wrong, we were back to not having pushed the buttons the first time. She told me not to look at her. At a total loss, I moved away. She wailed, “Mama, stay!”
It feels unfair, in a way, to record these kinds of days. She missed her dad this morning, who is away at a conference. Most days, she’s not like this, so while I was at the absolute reaches of my patience, I was also worried. I made her let me take her temperature (normal). At one point, I lost it a little. I am trying, I told her. I am trying to give you what you want…
I once read a parenting blog entry that made me so angry, I pretty much stopped reading parenting blogs. It was an interview with a woman who had a high-level position in finance. Yes, she was a banker, so, perhaps I’m biased. But when she was asked for tips about how to get your kids out in the morning, she said something about making organic oatmeal in large batches on Sunday night so that you could spend your precious minutes in the morning “eating together.”
“All you have to do is reheat it, and maybe slice some fresh strawberries into their bowls.”
This, I would like to point out, is what I was doing this morning. Reheating oatmeal. I even sliced some strawberries, for snack.
Here then is my tip, for working parents: become a banker, get a fat bonus, rape the global economy, let the American taxpayer bail you out, get self-righteous about how you earned that bonus, pay other people to drive your kids to Chinese lessons after school, and then, when you feel a twinge of guilt about your class status, work through that guilt by feeding your children organic food and papering over your moral bankruptcy with some kind of June Cleaver fantasy of yourself, in a parenting blog.
OK, definitely biased.
After we got through breakfast, H. wanted oatmeal for snack, so I was holding a glass bowl of it against me in the elevator at daycare, and I spilled milk down the front of my shirt. Other than that, I was feeling pretty good. We were at daycare. Our hair was not sticky. We were both wearing clothes. And then another dad got into the elevator with us. He held a pair of tiny shoes in his hand. Obviously he had forgotten them in the car and was heading back in. He wore jeans and a t-shirt. Like me. But for some reason, all I could think was, he looked like a vision of efficiency and grace. Unlike me and my milk stain. He probably has two kids, three kids. He probably has triplets and finished his PhD years ago.
My tip for working parents: Just try to wait til after five before you open the bourbon.
this blue angel
