Simmering
by Cecily Kellogg on April 16, 2010
I should have seen it happening. I should have known.
Tori came home from school cranky. She refused a snack, which meant that her mood only got worse with time. At one point, I came across a picture of these adorable teacup baby pigs and I offered to show her the photo at which point she yelled NO! I, startled, said, "But they are so cute!" To which she kicked a chair, threw herself to the floor and began screaming, "I DON'T WANT TO SEE ANYTHING CUTE! I DON'T WANT TO SEE ANYTHING CUTE!"
Flabbergasted, I ignored her until the storm passed. Eventually she ate some dinner and became a bit easier to deal with. As we usually do, I turned on the television to watch the evening news after dinner, a time Tori usually just plays with her toys or colors. But not tonight. Tonight she climbed all over me, yelling in my face, making me pause the news over a dozen times before I finally gave up on the news. Normally our deal is that she lets me watch the news and then we watch the Simpsons together before she goes up to bed (I love the way she watches the Simpsons; she laughs at every single line, because she hates missing the jokes, even when she doesn't understand them). This night she was ill-tempered through the Simpsons, and when it was time to take her to bed, both Charlie and I were relieved.
It was my turn (Charlie and I alternate both getting up with her and putting her to bed), so up the stairs we went. Tori was really breaking down, clearly exhausted, and she got more and more frustrating as we tried to brush teeth, wash her face, and get her in her pajamas.
I tried. I really did. But eventually, I was starting to lose it. And then… the bulb in her princess night light blew. We'd just bought a new bulb a day or two before, so I knew we had one in the house. But several other things had been in that bag… and Charlie couldn't find it.
I. Lost. My. Shit.
I knew that I'd handed the bag with the bulb to Charlie last, so he bore the brunt of my irrational fury. I raged. I "searched" for the bulb while tossing things to and fro, adding to the already chaotic mess of the living room. I yelled. Tori came downstairs, trying to get in the middle of it, and then she announced that she had to poop. I told her to go ahead to the bathroom and I'd come up when she done to wipe her, but she refused to go to the bathroom alone. I started trying to push her to go upstairs, and soon escalated to yelling at Tori while I was yelling at Charlie.
You know what happened, right?
Tori got really still all of a sudden. Charlie stopped in the middle of his attempts at self-defense, grabbed Tori, and started running up the stairs to the bathroom. But it was too late. Tori pooped all the way. I reeled it in enough to clean up the mess, and Charlie got her cleaned up. I came upstairs to get Tori ready for bed, and Charlie offered to go the store and get new bulbs. I was still muttering and complaining as I put on Tori's pajama shirt and pull-up.
Then Tori started crying and whining that she didn't like that shirt, it wasn't the one she wanted, and so on and so forth until I grabbed the shirt and yanked it off of her. Which of course hurt her when it snagged her chin a bit. Which of course led to more crying, and her saying, "You hurt me!"
[snip]
This happens to you, right? Tell me it does. Please.