Mom?s Time-out Is Too Nerve Wracking

Anita

Mom?s Time-out Is Too Nerve Wracking
?Lisa Barker

I just wanted a LITTLE break. Not that ?me time? that
is so fashionable these days, just a bathroom break.
Can?t a grown woman go to the bathroom alone and have
15 minutes of peace and not have a nervous breakdown?

Mistake number one: I went to the bathroom and did
not take my three-year old with me. I didn?t want to
play twenty questions about Mommy?s bodily functions
and, quite frankly, I get stage fright.

So I tiptoed down the hall to my room to use my
bathroom. (I never use the main bathroom. That?s the
one the kids use and, unless we have company, it?s in
no state for the faint of heart. Truly gross things
happen in there and I try not to guess how. I just
don a suit like those people from the Center for
Disease Control wear and hose it down with bleach once
a week.)

Success! I?d made a clean get away without my son
noticing. He?d finally landed (literally) on a pile
of toys and seemed to be settled for the moment. It?s
a rarity with him and, mistake number two, I was
foolish to think it would last. He has the attention
span of a gerbil on speed.

The first thing I heard was the sound of heavy
furniture moving. In no position to hurry, I bellowed
through the walls that separated me from my child.
?What are you doing out there??

There was a moment of silence and then I heard a
tinkling sound. Was that glass?

?What?s going on out there?? More silence. More
sounds of heavy furniture moving.

What is he DOING? He?s only three and barely weighs
as much as a paperweight. I heard the rustling of
what sounded like a rather large brush on the laminate
floor...something that sounded rather suspiciously
like the Christmas tree being moved.

Mistake number three: I panicked and my son knew it.
He heard it in my scream.

I heard little cowboy-booted feet running from the
kitchen to the living room and down the hall to a room
that he KNOWS he?s not supposed to go into. The door
slammed.

There were tense moments of utter silence punctuated
by me bellowing my son?s name and then straining to
hear what he was up to. No answer.

I rushed like a fireman on call. I barreled out of
the room and there he stood with the biggest,
cheekiest grin on his face. A cursory scope of the
house revealed nothing out of the ordinary. And still
there was that big grin on his face.

?What have you been up to??

?Nothinnnnng.?

Forget Mom?s time-out. I just can?t take it.

. . . . . . . . . . .
Jelly Mom? is written by Lisa Barker, mother of five
and author of "Just Because Your Kids Drive You
Insane... Doesn't Mean You Are A Bad Parent!" and is
syndicated through Martin-Ola Press/Parent To Parent.
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