I Really Don't Know How To Tie This One Together With a Title. Mean Mom? The Sacrifices Mothers Make? Can I Help You Be A Mean Mom? Any Suggestions?

We ate lunch at a pizza/pasta place in Disneyland. When we arrived at the restaurant, I left Tyler in line to order our food while I took Tal to the bathroom to change his diaper. We were in Tomorrowland, so the flashy and overpriced souvenir that was everywhere you looked was a large Buzz Lightyear action cup. It was an action figure AND a cup! Given Talmage's tendency towards the drink, there was nothing he wanted more in the world. Talmage is typically pretty good at being told no and he reacted remarkably well when I told him that those cups were for someone else. When we returned from the bathroom, Tyler was about to buy our food and told me that Preston and Jacob, Talmage's cousins, were getting Buzz Lightyear action cups. Tyler didn't really want to get Talmage one, given the overpricedness, but I told him that Talmage really wanted one and if his cousins were going to be playing with one for the rest of the trip, we really needed to buy one for Tal. (Are you catching that dynamic? I talked Tyler into getting it. Me. Mommy. Not Daddy.) After our group decision, Tyler turns to Talmage and tells him "We are getting a Buzz cup! With Buzz on it!" Talmage immediately lights up, turns to me and says, "Mom said no; Dad said YES!"

That has become his mantra that he has repeated over and over to anyone who will listen--himself (he listens very well to himself), Sean, Barbara, Tigger, various employees of Disneyland. "Mom said no; Dad said YES!" I decided after a couple days of this to take advantage of Dad's new favored position and hightail it out of there to return to Utah and a life unencumbered by the responsibility of motherhood.

I slept in today.

I know many people sleep in and that they do it all the time. Those people are not mothers. There are many sacrifices you make to be a mother. One is your cute body. Another is your freedom to shop in peace without fear of singles who sleep in regularly looking down at your "joyously active" and "wonderfully creative" toddler running up and down the aisles and shaking their single heads, knowing they will do things much better when they are a mother. These are things that I have just learned to accept and embrace. My stretch marks? They are beautiful. Judgmental strangers? Clearly don't understand how difficult and wonderful having a toddler really is. But the sleeping in, OH, THE SLEEPING IN! I have gotten up between 6:00 and 7:00 the last 2 years 9 months. And I have at least 20 years of it ahead. Sure, Tyler is an amazing father and has many times played with Talmage so I could sleep an extra 30 minutes. But those 30 minutes are the restless sleep of the guilty not the glorious narcotic slumber of one alone in a house, waiting for the sun to graze my eyelids and gently nudge me toward consciousness. 8:23. That's all I could manage. But it was a holy experience.

I have found out that I am incapable of taking care of myself having taken care of a small human being for almost three years. I stayed up late (til 10:36!! LATE.) last night despite the fact that I was ready to collapse at 7 pm. And then when I went upstairs to go to bed, I realized that I hadn't eaten. All day long. I totally forgot to eat. So I went to the fridge, threw away some rotten turkey bacon and sour yogurt and made myself white bread with swiss cheese and some peach-mango salsa. With a pickle.

I'm now in desperate need of responsibility so I can become a functioning human again. Anyone need anything? Someone to say no to your kids? Any Disney souvenirs to reject? Bring it on. My self-reliance depends on it.