Momming Alone: Sri Lanka Trip – Muddy Paws and Cheerios

January 28, 2017

It’s day seven of thirteen – “My husband is amazing, my husband is amazing…” It’s what I have to keep telling myself when he’s off on one of his business trips. This time it’s for thirteen days, and I would be more annoyed if he was somewhere I actually wanted to be. However, he’s in a third world country wearing dress pants with 24/7 swamp ass in the 88% humidity, and has a great chance of getting food poisoning on any given day. Its so hard when he’s gone, but I know he’s doing everything he can to provide for our family. In the meantime, I have to woman up and try to keep our kid fed, house cleaned, and be a productive member of society when I get out there and hit the pavement selling a wonderful assortment of rubber trick-or-treats and my soul. Either way, I’m feeling relaxed, got to sleep in a little bit, and now I’m enjoying some breakfast with my adorable, chubby faced, 13 month old little girl. She’s eating cheerios, blueberries and bananas and she’s just having a blast like most toddlers do. Laughing and giggling her little head off, trying to share her food with Mommy and just being the sweetest thing on the entire planet. I’m sipping my tea and snapping photos of her to share with Daddy later and just enjoying the calm. I’m in my normal homeless chic attire, but who cares, I’m somewhat rested and my kid is happy. It’s Saturday morning and I’ve made it a whole work week alone, with a toddler and a 75 pound mammoth of a dog. I’ve wiped snotty noses, changed dirty diapers, dealt with crappy customers, drank one million cups of fake tea and watched every episode of Little Einsteins, “We’re going on a trip, on our favorite Rocket ship…” playing over and over in my head. All while surprisingly maintaining my hygiene (yay me!) and acting like an adult at work. Holy crap, I’m super Mom! I got this, just six more days to go! As soon as I’m feeling like I’ve just conquered the world and the stupid, shit-eating grin on my face started to hurt, I get up to let my dog in. The chaos that would soon follow is a thing of Mommy nightmares…

I go to the back sliding door to get, lets call him Shitster (to maintain his privacy and doggy dignity) back in the house and as soon as I had the door open enough for him to push his head through I could see that his entire body was full of mud. My first instinct was to grab him, so he wouldn’t spread the mud all over the kitchen and that was my first of many mistakes that morning. My favorite red, plaid, old man robe was now covered in mud and dog hair. “Stay! Stay Shitster!” Surprisingly, he listened, standing there at the doorway with a proud look on his face, acting like he deserved a reward for doing the one thing dogs are supposed to do, listen. I grabbed some paper towels and attempted to wipe as much of the mud off of him as possible, but it was everywhere. It was actually pretty impressive how Shitster got so much mud all over his body within the two and a half minutes he was in the yard. As I’m half way through a brand new roll of paper towels my adorable, chubby faced, 13 month old starts fussing. She’s finished her breakfast and she wants out of the high chair. Mommy wrestling her furry brother was not amusing her anymore, she wanted to go explore. “Baby girl, Mommy is busy. Can you wait just a few more minutes?” Trying to reason with a tiny human who was out of cheerios is like trying to reason with someone who uses “alternative facts,” as an argument, pointless.

The toddler is now on the edge of a full melt down, but holding on by a thread to some reason as I put on some music for her. God bless the talents of Ed Sheeran, our baby girl loves him. The dog on the other hand has managed to get more mud on the floor and my clothes than what was originally covering his body. My patience has now completely wore thin, and the varying levels of Bat Shit Crazy Mommy were starting to surface as I started to sweat. I don’t like sweating. If you’re not having sex or working out, its just not worth it and to be quite honest who has time to even break into a sweat during sex with a toddler in the house? Not this Mom. With sweat now filling the divots and valleys of my saggy mom bits, I realize that I have no choice but to give the dog a bath, because the paper towels were not working and I can’t kill him. The baby has grown quite an attachment to him, so that was a no go. The thing is, giving this dog a bath isn’t a simple task, its more of an event. The kind of event you get forced into going to like a pot luck dinner, church or therapy. I was now being forced to figure out how to give the dog a bath, all while keeping my little explorer safe and occupied. I was determined to get this dog and this house clean again, and get back to reveling in my short lived proud moment when I was conquering the world of Momming alone. “I can do this, I’ll figure it out,” I told myself. Isn’t that what moms do – figure shit out on the fly?

However, anyone with a toddler understands that doing anything that takes your undivided attention is almost impossible because your kid wants to go head first off the couch, climb the stairs, and asking them to sit still is just plain ridiculous. I have no other option, she’s going into baby jail. I locked the dog in the kitchen, where the mud was currently stabilized, and I ran the toddler up to her crib. Threw in some toys, a teddy or two and slid out the door before she knew what was going on. I then ran back downstairs to attempt to get Shitster up to the bathroom. Second mistake of the hour, telling him, “Let’s go buddy, we need to get a bath.” He doesn’t respond or understand “No! Come! Leave it!” but the word BATH he knows perfectly, and he does not appreciate quality scrub down time. He’s running in circles around the island in the kitchen, with me a few steps behind him and that was the moment where I started to question my sanity. I must look like a complete asshole. Chasing my own dog around the house like a lunatic, while we are both covered in mud. To make matters worse, while trying to lure him up the stairs, I’ve done nothing but spread the mud from the back door, through the kitchen, up the hall way, and now to the living room where we are now facing each other, stand off style. “Shitster, COME NOW!” has fallen on the most stubborn bulldog ears, and I finally decide to put him on the leash and lead him up the stairs, just trailing more and more mud through the house. You ask, “Why didn’t you just pick him up?” You try picking up 75 pounds of girthy, slobbery, stubborn, and angry dead weight up a flight of narrow stairs and then get back to me.  As we finally entered the bathroom, which is across the hall from the babies room, she spotted us. She starts crying, because she wants to join in on the family fun. “Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma!” “Baby girl, you’re okay. I need to give the puppy a bath,” I said. “Ba-Ba-Ba,” she starts saying, because she too understands the word bath and unlike the dog, she loves bath time. To demonstrate her disapproval of baby jail time she starts throwing all of her toys that I used as a distraction out of her crib. I realize that I’m just going to have to let her cry this one out while I get this damn dog cleaned up. “I’m sorry your puppy is a butthole baby girl, I need to give him a bath.” “Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba!”

Now, I’m kneeling over the tub in my underwear and blown out maternity bra trying to get Shitster lathered up. “Why are you in your unattractive under garments, Melvi?” I’ll tell you, I got so hot wearing my robe and it was covered in mud I had to take it off or pass out due to heat stroke. If I hadn’t been so angry at the time I would’ve been a little embarrassed, but Shitster watches me get dressed every morning, he knew what he was getting himself into. Anyhow, he’s got the sad eyes working and starts to whimper like the big baby that he is as I’m lathering him up, and I feel bad for like two seconds, “It’s okay buddy, you’re fine.” He then shakes his entire body and I’ve got mud, soap, and dog hair flying all over me and the bathroom. Awesome, I think to myself. Just one more thing to add to the chores list. Oy! What seemed like hours later, the dog was bathed, towel dried and brushed. I did it, all while my kid was now laying on her back and holding onto one of her babies. She wasn’t entirely happy, every few minutes she would yell out a sound or baby word just to keep me on my toes. I still needed to clean the bathroom, the stairs, the floors downstairs, nurse my kid and try to get her to nap so I can wash my own damn ass. But, for a few minutes I sat on the floor in my underwear and blown out maternity bra, sweating like no woman ever should, with dog hair, slobber, and what feels like a cheerio stuck to my thigh. The wet dog resting his sad and apologetic face on my knee, while I played peek-a-boo with my kid through the spaces of her crib, really just trying to catch my breath. It’s not even noon folks, and I’ve got six more days until my husband is home from his travels. As soon as he walks through that door I’m going to put a straw in a bottle of wine and lock myself in a closet like the responsible adult that I am. Pray for me…