I was so naive...

"Oh please, really?...pshh...it'll be a cake walk." These were my ignorant thoughts when offered warnings from other military wives. They had many a yarn to spin about toddlers turning into sippie cup clutching monsters upon daddies leaving for deployments.
(In all fairness to myself, last deployment Isabella was still just a wee little baby...so she really didn't realize Tyler was gone. But oh, my...she knows this time. She knows.) My generally happy kid, with the pleasant disposition has turned into a ticking time-bomb.

I was one my way to the grocery store and I needed some white spray paint for one of my projects that I haven't been able to work on, I thought, coolbeans...I'll run in the Nex on my way to the commissary...kill two birds with one stone! Oh, geez...What's wrong with me?! I must have left %50 of my brain in the delivery room along with the placenta...I'm not sure what went wrong between the escalator and the paint aisle...but something went wrong...something went really wrong...She turned into what I like to call, The Bellanator. We were pleasantly going along holding hands, when suddenly something caused her to crumple into an angry red-headed heap on the floor...bad thing was, I didn't realize Hurricane Bella had rolled in and I kept on walking...causing the drag effect...oops.

Bad Mom Point #1

I stopped and bent down to pick her up causing some big Marine behind me to ram his little hand held basket into my bottom...sorry dude. Of course, being a toddler worth her salt, she rag-dolled me...big time. Nice. I'm trying to get a hold of her and it just aint workin' It's like trying to wrestle a greased pig...well, I KNEW there was a reason I dressed her in over-alls today. Desperate, I picked her by her straps.

Bad Mom Point #2

So, I'm carrying my sobbing child by her overall straps, just trying to find an empty aisle so I can talk some sense into her...you know, toddler sense. Turns out, Isabella doesn't like sense. She grabbed my hair with one hand, and began swatting my facial region with the other, she did that toddler angry jog-in-place thing and then she kicked my groin...repeatedly. This just isn't going well at all...at this point fluids are flowing everywhere...we're talking snot, tears and both of our sweat, I'm like a mad woman, clutching a can of spray paint in one hand and trying to wrangle a hot mess in the other...a head peeps around the corner...eyebrows raised, the dude disappears and I quickly determined it is the men who always look...because any smart woman wouldn't dare.

Obvious Bad Mom Point #3

Then, It started. Screaming like you've never heard...my spray paint hits the ground. Two more heads peep around the corner. I wanted to bite their snooping heads off and eat them for dinner. My Mothership bag falls to the floor. I'm trying to scoop up my charge and untwine her sticky finger from my hair, but her grip is like The Hulk and she's gone so ding-dang-dong limp!

Her armpits are like jello and her body is positively noodle-esque, I'm beginning to wonder if my child has a spine...the overall straps weren't very popular with the public so I'm searching another way to transport my disaster on Keds...Her screaming is coming straight from the throat by now...they're horror film worthy...then, my clever little minx couples them with pleas of "HELP! HELP!" Oh, very nice Bella, thanks for that.

Bad Mom Point #4

Three heads this time. "WHAT? YOU WANT HER?!" They disappear. Thought so. I hear them laughing. Good thing I don't have a license to carry. I pick up my Mothership and then I pick Isabella up and carry her under my arm...kinda like you would a bag of cat food...one toddler hand is still firmly intwined in my hair and those sturdy, little legs are pumping for all it's worth...Obviously, we left our spray paint rolling around on the floor.

Not even two minutes later, after the walk of shame through the store...she was clapping her hands, kissing my cheek and between snuffles, she was telling me we were "fwiends"

SIGH.

I know that right now, in this very moment...6 hours ahead of me in Tennessee...my mother is feeling quite vindicated...and she is laughing.