Guilty

I feel awful that I haven't written anything in so long. I know all my fans (both of you - hi, mom) have been really disappointed in me. When I tried to log on this morning I actually had forgotten my username for this site, which has never happened before. I feel horribly guilty for neglecting my writing.

In fact, I feel horribly guilty in general. Everybody warns you that having a child means feeling guilty pretty much all the time. If you're at home you feel guilty that you aren't at work, and if you are at work you feel guilty that you aren't home with your child. The once a month you go out without your child you feel guilty for dashing out the door, whooping with glee.

You feel guilty for forgetting her hat when it's 30 degrees outside.

You feel guilty for skipping the park one day because you know one of the mothers you can't stand will be there.

You feel guilty for letting her nails get so long she shreds the furniture like a cat, and for having bought a house with wood floors so that she gets bruises on her little shins from crawling around on them.

And you definitely feel guilty about stuffing her with food to the point that she covers everything within a ten foot radius with projectile vomit.

Those few devoted readers I have will recall my extreme fear when it comes to vomiting. And while I don't really concern myself with other people's vomit, the smell is another story, because that can make me wretch. (Aside: what was Chef Boyardee thinking, making spaghettios smell EXACTLY like puke? Am I missing something here?)

However this is where I found guilt to actually come in handy: I was so busy feeling incredibly horribly guilty about force-feeding my child that I was able to get through the whole ordeal without one thought of adding my dinner to hers on the dining room floor.

"You FORCE FED YOUR CHILD?" I hear you asking, your mouth twisted in disgust and abhorrence. As well it should be; your mouth is absolutely right. But let me explain.

Lately, my beautiful adorable brilliant wonderful baby girl, aged 13 months, has decided to make every bedtime and every mealtime into an ordeal. She doesn't want to eat, she doesn't want to go to sleep. She has reduced us to performing any number of trained-seal-like tricks to get her to do one or the other. When it comes to eating, we are forced to perform "Staying Alive" ad nauseam (ha. literally). My daughter LOVES this song. She sings the "ah, ah, ah, ah," part. And when she opens her mouth to join in the chorus, we take the opportunity to shove a spoonful of food into her yaw.

The trick of feeding her leads directly to the trick of getting her to sleep - and stay asleep - which, in turn, leads to ME getting sleep, which is heinously selfish of me to even think about and I feel very guilty about that. But if she doesn't eat enough then she'll wake up a couple hours later - after having spent an hour or two trying to get her to sleep in the first place - because she's hungry. And then she'll figure as long as she's up we may as well read a book or twelve. And next thing you know, the night has gone by and she has slept maybe a total of 7 hours which is about 4 short of what she needs, thus leading to an excruciatingly long and cranky day during which she is too pissy to eat anything, thus contributing to the cycle.

So we've made it our mission to stuff her as full as we possibly can.

In our defense, this has been going on for a couple weeks now, and we didn't really get it when she started to cry and squirm in her highchair that she really MEANT it this time, she didn't want to eat. We kept bellowing Staying Alive and she kept opening her mouth and we kept shoveling it in. And then all of a sudden our gorgeous little girl spewed a torrent of orange and green vomit that would rival the output of the Colorado River should the Hoover Dam ever crack. Except way smellier.

I was horrified. This was the first time she'd ever really vomited. This was not sweet-smelling and gently dribbling spit-up. This was a torrential downpour of foulness and it was EVERYwhere. It was all over her and me and the high chair and puddling on the floor. I had to reach into those puddles in order to scoop up my sopping daughter. But I didn't cringe because of the vomit, even though I could see out of my peripheral vision that there was some in my hair, likely a bit of carrot if one was to judge by the color. I cringed because I felt AWFUL. I still feel awful. My eyes fill at the thought of my abusive awfulness to my innocent daughter who has no way to protest other than crying, and I didn't listen, and I shoved her so full she literally burst. It was that awfulness that dominated every fiber of my being as I hugged her tight and hurried to get her undressed and comfortable.

The thing is, as soon as I got her out of the chair and cleaned up and into the tub, she was happy as a clam. She sang and babbled to herself as usual, totally fine and happy, while I sat on the edge of the tub and pulled out chunks of my own hair as a form of self flagellation.

It's true, she's fine. She's over it and has moved on. Chances are good she won't need therapy as a result of this but me? I'm going to need intensive therapy probably for the rest of my life.

I feel really guilty about that.