I Love You Even When…

I saw this book at Sam’s Club a while back and kinda almost p!ssed myself at the title. For some reason it’s really funny to me. Because from that title my mind automatically thinks it’s a book saying, like, I hate you for all these reasons, but I still love you because I kinda have to. So I totally wanted to buy it. But I opened it to a random page and turns out it’s all God-ish and not in line with where my mind went. Well, cr@p.

This is more what I was envisioning in a children’s book titled “I Love You Even When,” drawing from my own personal experiences and bad-mom thoughts:

I love you even when…you are Dr. Adorabyll and Mr. Make-Mom-Wanna-Hyde. It’s easy to love you as Dr. Adorabyll, of course. You’re easy-going and happy and playful. Your alter-ego on the other hand, is a terror. I don’t want to get mixed up with the likes of him. He’s pissy, moody, short-tempered, and down-right mean. I don’t care for Mr. Make-Mom-Wanna-Hyde. But I love him, nonetheless – he and Dr. Adorabyll are one and the same, after all. Knowing that isn’t the trick, though – it’s understanding that something made the good Doctor turn into his vicious counterpart. Am I happy all the time? Hell no. Am I always comfortable and feeling like a million bucks? Hell no. How can I reasonably expect you to feel good and be happy all the time? Being a grown-up, I have the luxury of b!tching to my friends, spouse, and coworkers, emotional eating, taking meds, or getting bombed to make me feel better. You, little mister, can’t tell me what the problem is or what hurts. So I do my best to cut you some slack and show you love no matter what. Full disclosure, I have been known to lose my sh!t. Not “at” you so much, but because of you. You don’t know it, of course, which makes it all the more frustrating that I can’t keep it together sometimes. You’re this little innocent baby and I’m the grown-@ss woman who should have control over Dr. Reasonabyll and Mrs. B!tch.

I love you even when…you don’t sleep through the night. And this is saying A LOT, kid. As a small child I would put myself to bed – when my parents couldn’t find me chances are I changed into my jammies and snuggled into bed all on my own. In high school I cancelled plans to stay home and nap. And until you came along, little man, I NEEDED 8-10 hours of solid sleep per night to function. Hang on, gotta throw this in here: LOLOLOL!!! Okay, whew, let me wipe the tears of laughter and sorrow from my eyes and press on… I heart sleep. God d@mmit, I heart sleep. But I love you more. Apparently. About once every 20x I’m up with you, you fall back asleep in my arms – something you’ve refused to do for months and months – and I want nothing more than to hold you and feel you breathe. It makes the other 19x I’m up worth it. Ha! PSYCH!…I’d rather sleep, but it makes that 1x slightly less unbearable.

I love you even when…you cry non-stop on a 5-hour car ride. Kinda like you’re doing as I type this. I get it – this sucks. It’s late, you’re tired, it’s boring, you’re cooped up in your car seat, and maybe you have a headache as bad or worse than mine right now. You’re miserable and so it goes, misery loves company, so mom & dad are right there with ya, kid. At least you can empty your bladder whenever you want to- we gotta suffer ’til the next seedy truck stop.

I love you even when…you said “dada” first. What kinda BS is that? I guess giving you a safe, warm environment to morph into your human form for 39 weeks, or laboring for 22 hours with 3.5 straight hours of strenuous pushing isn’t enough to be worthy of your first word. How about destroying my spectacular boobs with pregnancy and breastfeeding…? Nope, not enough sacrifice. Ok, then, what about losing the ability to hold my pee when I coughed or sneezed for a matter of months…? Nah, still not enough. But Dada is a cool dude, and it’s super freaking cute when you say it in your excited, tiny lil voice, so I’ll give you a pass. This time.

I love you even when…you make a d@mn mess. It’s crazy to me that this is only gonna get worse as you get older. In less than a year you’ve cluttered our home with swings, activity mats, bouncy chairs, high chairs, bumbo chairs, car seats, exersaucers, walkers, strollers, and countless toys. You throw food at the floors and walls, smear it on the table and all over your face. You annihilate clothing, either with food, formula, pee, spit up, dirt, &/or poo. I feel like I spend half my life picking up your toys, washing bottles and sippy cups, scrubbing food off your high chair and stains from your clothes, wiping your grubby paws and face, and cleaning your greasy handprints off tables and walls. And it’s okay. I still love you. I’d rather be on a beach with a Mai Tai while a maid changes my sheets and scrubs my toilet, of course, but ya know, ya do whatcha gotta do. And someday I’ll make you scrub the toilet and it’ll be glorious.

I love you even when…you are opposed to having your diaper changed. I’m sure having me steal your pees and poops is stressful, but the acrobatic contortionist routine has gotten old. Rolling like a gator isn’t making things better on either of us. I do just about everything short of stand on my head during diaper changes in attempt to keep your attention just barely long enough to get the next diaper on. If your onesie isn’t snapped and your pants aren’t on, it’s still a success if the diaper is on. Clearly, lying still on your back is torture and I should be locked up for merely suggesting the idea. You used to LOVE your changing table, in fact we’d take you to your changing table when you were fussy to calm you down. Now the changing table must pain you like you’re laying down on hot, molten lava in the shape of pointy nails sticking straight up into your back with bullets shooting out of them, meanwhile, independently, tiny little mini-dwarves are using their teeny yet menacing ice picks on your eyeballs and under your fingernails. Perhaps this is just motivation to start potty training you at 1-year, so thank you, guy – I’m sure that will be way less frustrating than changing diapers…NOT! Man, remember “NOT!”? Ah, good times. Anyway, I love that you’re an energetic little boy who just wants to be on the move and playing, so I’ll try to do better at letting you do your thing on the changing table. The diaper will get on eventually, some way, somehow.

I love you even when…all of it and everything. I love you no matter what and because you’re you. And sometimes because I kinda have to.