Free Confessions of a Scary Mommy: An Honest and Irreverent Look at Motherhood: The Good, the Bad, and the Scary by Jill Smokler Page B

think I was mad at him, he would just keep coming in there every few seconds, asking me for things.
    • Sometimes, I am scared at how smart my son is . . . he is only seven and I really think he may be smarter than my husband.
    • My husband manages to “sleep through” our hungry infant every night. Last night I pulled all the covers off of him, threw them on the floor, and slammed the door on my way out. He didn’t sleep through that.
    L ast winter, on the coldest day of the year, I decided to take a rare bath. After I was all dried off, I continued the alone time with a face mask and a quick call to a girlfriend. Jeff was downstairs with the kids, and surely, everyone could survive without me for a little while longer. Besides, didn’t I deserve a few moremoments to myself? From the bathroom, I could hear one of my children loudly banging around in the family room. My precious baby was obviously getting restless. “I’ll be down in a few minutes,” I hollered, waiting for the green clay to dry so I could wash it off. “But, I neeeeed you,” I heard from below. “ Pleeeease come downstairs!” I ignored the wails as the huffing and puffing intensified. When I finally descended after a whopping fifteen minutes of alone time, I found my baby sulking on the couch. “What were you doing for so long?” he wanted to know. “I was so lonely.” And there he was—the biggest baby of all. My husband.
    I looked around for someone to roll my eyes at, but everyone else in the house was happily occupying themselves by playing alone, independently coloring, or reading. So I looked at the dog. “Seriously?” I asked her. “ This is what I’m married to?” She sighed and put her head down, obviously in agreement. I was just glad to have a witness.
    Jeff’s transition from husband to child began immediately after Lily was born. It started subtly—a hint of an outturned lower lip when I’d accidentally fall asleep rocking the baby to sleep, when he and I would normally be together. A pouty face when I suggested that I spend a weekend out of town. And from there it grew, from merely a discreet facial expression into a full-blown personality trait. “You don’t pay enough attention to me” and “I think you love the baby more than me” escaped his lips on more than one occasion. The metamorphosis was undeniable. Before my very eyes, I watched as the love of my life had transformed into the last thing on earth I needed: another child.
    Unfortunately, unlike the others, this child doesn’t seem to grow up. My kids are getting to the age when they don’t want public affection anymore; I need to sneak in quick cuddles andhugs when no one else is looking. Usually, they just want an air kiss or a wave hello. Jeff, on the other hand, needs to be touched constantly . “Can you rub my temples?” he’ll ask, giving me no choice as he inserts his head in my lap. He’ll sit thisclose to me, reading over my shoulder as I type and taking up my precious breathing space. Sometimes, I find myself hiding out in the bathroom to get some distance, not from the kids but from him. If he could be carried around in a BabyBjörn all day, he would.
    Remember the loss of sleep that’s synonymous with having a newborn? Well, I’m still experiencing it, years after the bottles and crib have long been retired. It’s not feverish children, middle-of-the-night pleas for milk, or help recovering from a bad dream that’s keeping me awake at night. No, it’s far, far worse. Jeff’s snoring has become such a problem that I am shocked that I don’t receive calls from the neighbors at three in the morning, threatening to call the authorities if the noise doesn’t immediately cease. It sounds like what I imagine a dying elephant to sound like, if there were a microphone placed in the elephant’s mouth. I can hear it when I retreat to the family room couch, an entire floor and three rooms away. People at school drop-off assume that I look