I don't think Kenny Rogers was referring to raising children when he wrote "The Gambler," but as a mother, I play my hand all day long. Some you win and some you lose. Knowing when to fold doesn't have anything to do with the laundry, with the exception of my husband's T-shirts, which pretty much end up in a tousled mess in the drawer anyway, after his search for his favorite. No. Knowing when to fold has everything to do with surviving the day. What battles do you fight and which ones do you reluctantly pass over in hopes for a better hand the next time around. For instance, every single day, thirty seconds after letting my dog Mandie out to pee, I have to yell at her to keep her from treating the yard as an all-you-can-eat turd buffet. Is it a battle I should bother waging? Probably not. As long as I keep feeding her diet size portions of food to try and trim her morbid obesity, she's going to snack on her own shit when she thinks I'm not looking. She's like a fat girl who sneaks candy bars in her bedroom closet after everyone has gone to bed. She's addicted to eating and trying to fight it is a waste of my resources. But there are other battles that present themselves daily in which the odds are slightly more in my favor. Those battles are the ones where I line up my cards and hope that either my hand is stronger or my bluff is better. If you haven't figured it out yet, mothers are professional gamblers.
The other day, I won. After being cooped up in the house for several days, I needed to get out. Now trying to get out of the house within the window of time in which Mariella has napped, eaten and had a diaper change is in itself a big gamble but I was itching for a change of scenery and I had birthday gift cards to spend at the mall. So I packed her in her car seat, stocked her baby survival kit, grabbed my purse and headed out the door. When we got to the parking lot, I decided to put on the Baby Bjorn carrier so I could lug her around and still have both hands free. Now I've only used the contraption once and as a new mom I'm not yet an expert in all the baby gear, so figuring out how to put on what is the equivalent of a polyester puzzle stacked the odds against me even more. Seriously, I have had sexy lingerie that was easier to get in and out of than this damn thing. Plus, as I'm struggling with it, Mariella was reaching a boiling point in her car seat, so the pressure was definitely on.
So, there we were in the parking lot, trying to get into the Baby Bjorn. Because it was a particularly windy day, I decided first to get into the back seat and put the thing on back there and then attempt a smooth transition for her from car seat to my chest. It wasn't so smooth. I had one arm in when she started kicking and spitting. My anxiety jumped up a notch. I took it off, read the instruction label and put it on again. Mariella started yelling and snorting. I broke a sweat. Once I felt securely strapped in, I got her out of her seat and made the first attempt at putting her in the Baby Bjorn too. By this time, though, she was like a pissed off little piglet, squirming and protesting this ridiculous endeavor. I had her with both hands as her body was seized up and tense, trying to gently shove her down into the pocket of the carrier. She obliged but I couldn't get it right. First the carrier was too tight and needed to be loosened. Then I struggled with the fasteners. After the third time of putting her in and taking her back out, she was screaming and we were both sweating. The windows of the car were all steamed up and as we wrestled and bumped around in the back seat, I began to worry what passersby were thinking was going on inside my car.
But I won. Finally, after coming very close to giving up and going home, I got her in the carrier, safely snapped in, and we headed into the mall. The cool wind actually felt good on my face which was dripping with beads of sweat by that time. I stood up out of the car, took a deep breath, and enjoyed my victory. Five minutes into my browsing, she was fast asleep against my chest. I spent my gift cards, got some wardrobe items and went home feeling refreshed and reassured that every once in awhile, I'll take the pot.
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