Birthing Beautiful Ideas

(Now commences the twelve seconds out of the past month where I will not blog about VBAC, the NIH Consensus Development Conference, or the gazillion ideas that I have to change the world of maternity care in the United States.  Enjoy.)

There are times when the fact that I have neither octopus arms nor eyes on the back of my head really makes parenting two little ones a killer.

Just consider this little episode from today.

This afternoon, M (4) asked me to make him a baked sweet potato for lunch.  Somewhere in the midst of concealing my excitement (didn’t this kid just tell me two weeks ago that sweet potatoes were Satan spawn or something?) and mashing the potato with a fork, A (21 months) asked me to get him some more juice.

Silly me thought that I would carry my unwavering torch of parental justice (fool that I am) and finish addressing M’s desire for food before addressing A’s desire for more juice.  It was a simple equation, really: M asked for food first, A asked for a drink second, I thought I’d M’s request first, and then meet A’s request second.

LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL!

No one was starving (both kids had recently eaten snacks), no one was dehydrated (A had just finished off a cup of milk not twenty minutes beforehand), there was no blood, no imminent death or danger, and the Earth was still spinning on its axis.  So I told A that I would be happy to get him more juice as soon as I was finished getting M his sweet potato.

He let me know he was “displeased” with my decision with one of his shrill whines that I think is roughly translated as, “WTF, Mom?!”  And then I had the audacity to tell him (in, I sweartogod, my very best June Cleaver voice) that “this was fair since M asked for his food first, sweetie” and that he “would get his juice soon!”

And then I went back oh-so-carelessly-and-mindlessly to mashing up that sweet potato.

I turned my back on the spurned almost-two-year-old.

And when I turned around, I kid you not, my little angel was standing by the pantry in a puddle of maple syrup, his head cocked back, mouth wide open, holding an open and upturned bottle of Aunt Jemima the same way a college kid holds a bottle of Tequila on a spring break trip.

And if that sweetie-pie had the dexterity to give me the finger, I’m sure he would also have been flipping me the bird and sneering, “I’ll give you juice, Mom.”

Ay-yai-yai.

Anyone know where I can get those eyes on the back of my head?