The Mechanical Baby: The Sequel

About this time last year, I found myself chronicling a nightmarish 48 hours of pseudo-grandparenthood as I watched from the sidelines while my teenage son "parented" a mechanical devil-child for two days as part of his health class.  I cringed. I laughed (behind closed doors). I cursed at the ungodly hours this mechanical infant chose to wail. I watched my teenager come to the realization that babies are all-consuming and that parenting them is a 24 hour job.  He was annoyed, tired, and cranky (typical parent of a newborn). He already knew quite well that he was not prepared to be a parent.  The experience provided confirmation that he needs at least another decade or two to grow up before reproducing. 

Round two is upon us, and my daughter is on the schedule to bring her robotic bundle of joy home next week.  She is as nurturing as they come.  She is also whip smart and has a caustic sense of humor.  She has already written the post-parenting self evaluation which she will turn into her health teacher after completing this little experiment in parenting. 

This was an amazing experience.  I am in LOVE.  Thank you for inspiring me to be a teen mom.  Although I have yet to really have a boyfriend, even a weird pseudo-Facebook boyfriend, you have inspired me to get out there and find a baby daddy.  This experience really helped clarify my dreams and convinced me that it is never too soon to begin the magical journey of parenthood.  For that I am grateful.

In fact, her evil plan is to find an already (but unannounced) pregnant teen at her school and have her write this evaluation.  In a few months, when the teen mom is visibly expecting, she anticipates the mechanical baby program will silently disappear. I just LOVE this girl.

In the meantime, I'll buy earplugs and brace myself for Round 2 of premature grandparenthood and thank my lucky stars that I am parenting a sarcastic, irreverent responsible teenager.

Tasmanian Devil

Monday afternoon, I found myself in the car impersonating the Tasmanian Devil.  I kid you not.  My head was spinning and my voice registered something between an evil hiss and a shriek.  My words (not one of my prouder moments)... "Just stop talking.  Stop now. Stop. Now. I don't want to hear...stop...now."  I think it was actually more shriek than hiss. It  looks kind of innocent in print,  I should probably type it in bold with a million exclamation points, but that annoys me.  So, just trust me; It was a parenting low. 

The incident that triggered this exemplary parenting behavior was an argument between my two sons over who had the right to eat a bag of Teddy Grahams.  The nine-year-old said he didn't want them (a birthday party favor).  I offered them to his older brother.  This triggered an immediate change of heart on the part of the nine-year-old, who claimed imminent domain over the Teddy Grahams and insisted  that he (as the original owner of the cookies) had the authority to exercise his legal right to consume them despite the fact that just moments earlier he had clearly said that he was not interested in eating them. Ever.

Tears were flowing in the back seat.  Eyes were rolling in the front seat.  My head was spinning in the driver's seat.  The exorcism (and the shriek-hissing) began.  I had a revelation: sometimes a small exorcism is a good thing.  My children were so shocked and appalled by my behavior that they stopped.  Everything.  They clammed up and stared at me in disbelief.  Perhaps they were petrified that my head really was going to finally explode (I've been threatening that for years).  I'm not sure exactly what I said, but it was some combination of guilt-inducing rhetoric and reprimand that silenced everyone. 

Peeling out of the Driveway

Zero to sixty in under five seconds.  That pretty much sums up my parenting life these days. I close my eyes, grip the wheel, say a prayer, and hope for the best.  Hackie in the (mother)Hood was conceived (much like my children) without much forethought. Eight years into a "breakfast reading" freelancing gig with the Burlington Free Press, the call came.  My column was to be the next casualty of Gannett's belt-tightening measures. Having spent the better part of my parenting years publicly waxing poetic about the journey from toddlers to teens, I couldn't quite imagine an abrupt end to this long, strange trip that has seen my own life evolve from happily married mother-of-three to divorced mom flying by the seat of her pants. Hackie in the (mother)Hood is my effort to make sure that the rest of the story gets recorded.  The real fun is just beginning.

For those of you with a Vermont connection, I’m a huge Jernigan Pontiac fan, the original story-telling "Hackie" from BTV who writes regularly for Seven Days. Jernigan recounts tales from the driver's side of his cab - sometimes as voyeur and sometimes as active participant. Although I would not be so ridiculous as to pretend that I'm always in the driver's seat in this parenting game, I do have a pretty good view of the chaos (and occasionally contribute to it). While Jernigan's cast of characters is ever-evolving and frequently inebriated,  my cast of characters is stagnant, and my goal is to keep them sober. My passengers would likely get kicked out of most cabs. They are often loud and can't stop touching each other.  They're always eating and spilling food.  Sometimes they smell awful (and their friends do too), and they always have more junk than you can stuff into the trunk. They never pay me, rarely thank me, and regularly annoy me with their endless antics and atrocious actions. I'm confident that the storyline unfolding on any given day in my kitchen provides more fodder for entertainment than you can squeeze into a taxi cab any day. It only seems logical to begin with a story from the road...