twotothree

Today I chose a dental appointment over my child. 

Well, ok, that was dramatic.  I didn’t CHOOSE to have a molar crack and to need a crown, but I was certainly more excited about invasive dental work than I was about going home and dealing with an endlessly cranky baby. 

And it was like a vacation!  A vacation where a strange man with a bad sense of humor wedges a giant steel needle into sensitive gum tissue.  A vacation where you have to try to avoid eye contact while the strange man is inches from your face, so you choose to stare into the fluorescent lighting for half an hour instead of making that awkward eye contact.  A vacation where you work so hard to spit out that annoying chunk of dental cement, only to realize that’s actually your own numb tongue. 

But still, an entire hour where you don’t have to deal with your teething baby!  I closed my eyes, the surgical lighting burning down on my face, and it was almost like the Bahamas.  The drill was like sea gulls floating on a light breeze.  (Are there sea gulls in the Bahamas?  Whatever, I’m the one having the head of my tooth lopped off, I make the rules.)  The chatty nurse was the annoying tourist that plants her towel next to yours on the beach.  But you smile and deal with her because you’re in THE BAHAMAS and life is pina coladas and quiet and no children allowed!

Then I drove to my mother-in-law’s house and saw Gloria’s toothy, smiling face.  Oh, the crushing guilt.

I don’t dislike being a mom.  On the contrary, it’s pretty excellent.  I wouldn’t trade it for an entire year in the Bahamas.  But sometimes, after forty-eight hours of swollen baby gums, and drool, and newly-developed tantrums, you just need a short hiatus.  And you will have mean thoughts about babies, and you will look forward to a break, even if that break involves Novacaine and a paper bib. 

And I’m learning that this doesn’t make you a bad person.  It just makes you a mom.