"Down in the manhole with Barney" is an expression my ex-husband invented after coming out of an every other weekender with our daughter. I'm in the middle of one now. It's a four day one-on-one stint with our near two year old, no assistance.
At her age, I'm a slave to her whims (all 384/hr), one of which is that Barney MUST be on at all times when we're in the house. We could be back in my bedroom jumping on the bed with the Baby Mozart blaring, and she'd hear the "I Love You" ending song (I'm pretty sure it'll be playing during the apocalypse), and would stop whatever she was doing and run out there to demand the DVD be restarted. "Bah-eey! nnnnBah-eey!"
It's like this: We play on the floor, toys everywhere, various colorful plastic electronics playing the same children's songs-- Old McDonald's Farm and Prelude in C in xylophonic monochrome beeps. Can't take a shower when she's awake because she'll throw a fit that she can't come in; when I have to pee, I say "Mommy has to go potty" and she follows me in there and tries to climb first into my lap and then into the tub (she LOVES her bath). I have to keep the bathroom door child-proofed at all times.
There are some things I can't child proof-- my bookshelves for instance, which will be emptied from three feet down by the end of the day. Anything that can be thrown to the floor will be, including all of my lounge pillows, couch cushions, printer sheets (when she can get them), every toy in Sofia's massive bin, my bedsheets, every stuffed animal (and though I've bought her not a single one, she's got dozens), until it all looks like two three-hundred pound men broke in and ransacked the place.
Sofia eats her special organic food and I subsist on handfuls of baked chips and Diet Coke. When she goes down for her nap I usually just clear the stuffed animals from the couch and plop there to stare at the wall. Taking a shower is the last thing I want to do (even though there's more than five o'clock shadow on my legs and a half-inch layer of grime on my face).
I usually read my Nation (provided it isn't ripped to pieces and scattered all over the carpet). When I turn Barney off, he continues to play in my brains. So I'll be reading about death and corruption at the hands of the American occupiers in Iraq to the tune of "Sour Pickle Face (No one can keep on laughing at a sour pickle face!)"
When I have to take something away from Sofia or she's just woke from her nap and on a sleepy-tantrum warpath, she'll scream like she's being stabbed (welcome to the Terrible-Two's, they're real). I try to calm her and Sofia sometimes kicks violently (totally normal) and gets me in the eye, jaw, or square in the gut. There is always the possibility, too, that I'll enter her room post-nap or in the morning and she'll be fingerpainting with feces. Nothing short of a metal full-body diaper could keep her hands out of there, and I'm pretty sure she does it knowing she's going right in the tub when she's caught ("Big girl bah!" she screams).
When I come out of the manhole on Tuesdays, when Jimmy comes to get the baby, I look like I've been in a prisoner interrogation room for half a week-- filthy, unshaven, underslept, greasy-hair, clothing stained, dirty feet-- but the baby is as clean, plump, slept and ready as ever to move on to the next household.
****************************************
Today I decided take us out for my coffee, and I had to pick up some more milk. The Drive-Thru food and coffee establishments are my second source of nutrition. We're driving down Capital Circle today when my car starts to sputter and jerk while idling in Drive at stoplights. Finally it stalls out and the oil light comes on. I restart it, and the sputtering and mild jerking continues, but abates when I hit the gas, so I start praying all the lights turn green because I'm not turning back. I'm still 150 miles early for my next oil change. My car stalls when I stop to order my coffee and again when I get to the window, but it starts back up with fervent shots of gas. I'm then thinking I'm going to have to add a twelver to my grocery list which now also includes a quart of 5W-30. Good Ole American 24-Hour drug stores, where you can get all three of those things-- gallon of milk, twelve-pack of beer and a quart of motor oil, and be in and out in minutes.
I'm pulling out of the drug store parking lot when I spot this ridiculous, irritating sign:
...right. "Rev up" America's economy by buying a foreign car. And hurry, while gas prices are so low, and while we're not headed further into massive economic recession, OR in the middle of fossil fuel-caused climate crisis!
What I think of when I hear "The Economy":
...I'm tired of BushCo talking about it like it's my baby and I've got to suckle it. I think we all know my primary occupation. And I'm 25 years old, but I stay as economically informed as I can (thanks almost wholly to Naomi Klein and Paul Krugman). This is how I see it, pardon me: I've got a baby to feed, and because of "The Economy" it's becoming more and more difficult to do that. Not to mention that my baby will changing "The Economy's" nappies until she's changing those of her own grandchild. So I'm not doing fuckall for "The Economy--" I couldn't even if I wanted to.