The inconvenient truth is that parenthood will make you mad. Not as in angry, though that is certainly a discernable side effect, but as in the tightening of the muscles around your face as you debate through a quivering lip whether to jump out of your bedroom window, likely resulting in critical though not fatal injuries, or risk remaining in your house and chopping up innocent houseplants in an effort to redirect the rage away from deserving though legally protected minors.
The unraveling began at the grandparents’ house where an overdose of chocolate peanut butter cookies helped to precipitate Mac shouting obscenities at his father through the locked bathroom door and then making the regrettable decision to put his hand up at me, as if to say, “silence, I am in control,” resulting in unmitigated parental outrage and bedroom incarceration until dinnertime.
The festivities continued into the evening where after exhausting outdoor voices, illogical adulthood explanations, and looming morning time-outs, Mac was permitted to get into bed with me while I attempted to find a “happy place” within my current read Marley and Me. As I read, trying to mentally separate from my fidgety appendage, Mac inquired about various words on the page.
(When being harassed by family members under three feet tall I often find relief in interjecting personal humor, though at times inappropriate, it keeps me from pulling my arm hairs out in search of some kind of desperate relief).
For example ….
“BELIEVE, what does that mean mommy?” To which I responded, “I believe God has placed you on this earth to teach me patience and compassion for all loving and treacherous creatures like yourself.”
“PASSED, what does that me mean mommy?” Now even more annoyed, I replied, “Well that means my patience has passed, my hopes at world and household peace have passed, and I think I am about to pass you off to a nice family in China who have been looking to replace their recently deceased lizard.”
“Is that really what it says?”
“YES!!!!!!”
Mac then asked if he could read a “Mommy book,” so I handed him one from atop my stack: Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth.
This selection prompted me to think of four most recently relevant inconvenient truths of mine own …
1. I love this little felon with all my heart and that fact alone has kept him out of foster care for the month of March (April is anyone’s game).
2. That parenthood makes me happier, angrier, nuttier and more psychotically inclined than I ever thought possible.
3. That a 45 lb kid is laying in my bed, on top of my dry sheets, and just last week we thought it wise to throw out his nighttime pull-ups and pray for dry awakenings.
4. And my personal favorite ….. that I have just finished pushing this creature onto his father’s side of the bed …. I mean why should moms have all of the fun?
Playground Uprising 
