Too Many Cheez-Its, Not Enough Wine. Or Vice Versa.

I like wine. But I can’t drink as much as I used to for a number of reasons. First, my middle-aged metabolism has changed and I seem to get tipsy...okay, drunk...a little more quickly now. I think I used to be cute in a flirty, happy way when I was tipsy/drunk. Now that I have some wrinkles, I’m pretty sure I’m a lush.
The more important reason I can’t drink as much is because I always need to be able to drive my children to the hospital in case of an emergency. This philosophy was confirmed the day after Christmas when my 2-year-old daughter, the Tyrant, leaped into my lap, flipped over backwards, knocked over my wine glass, fell on it, and stabbed herself in the chest. In that instance, fortunately, my husband the paramedic decided to mend the wound with a Steri-Strip. It only left a small scar.
The incident taught me a lesson. And now I have yet another reason to avoid excessive drinking. Suppose I happily sipped a glass or three of wine with a girlfriend while a babysitter minded the kids, then came home to find a house with no electricity and the Tyrant unwilling to sleep without her noise machine?
This is exactly what happened last week. The power went out for no discernible reason at 9 pm and did not come back on until 5 am. Around midnight, there was a convergence of notable events: my pleasant buzz was wearing off, the headache was settling in, and the house was getting warm due to lack of air conditioning. It was very very dark. And the Tyrant woke up.
Husband was home but due at work the next day. It clearly fell under my job description to see the baby through the night.
I tried everything. I put her in bed with me; she wouldn’t stop whispering in Husband’s ear. I rubbed her back; she kicked me. I gave her a sippy cup with milk; she drank it and threw it across the room.
Finally I resorted to bribing her. “If you stay in your bed, I’ll give you Gummi Bears,” I told her. I offered up a handful.
“No want it,” she said. “Wanna watch teebee.” Which I totally would have let her do if THE FUCKING ELECTRICITY HAD NOT BEEN OUT.
So there I was at 3 am, rocking the baby in a hot dark room, sucking on Gummi Bears and listening to the pounding in my head.
Eating the Gummi Bears started me thinking about all the crazy stuff I buy now that I have kids. Cheez-Its, I think, are the worst. I hate Cheez-Its. I have never liked Cheez-Its. I have never liked the way they smell. And don’t get me started on the ones shaped like SpongeBob Squarepants. Just plain weird.
Yet I find myself gulping down handfuls of Cheez-Its all the time. I swear it’s what keeps me from achieving bodily perfection. Cheez-Its have some sort of magnetic attraction to my hand, which flings itself to my mouth like an automated crane arm. One minute I’m in the gym doing bench squats with a 30-lb. weight in each hand, and the next minute I’m flying down the road in my gold Toyota minivan, humming along to the chicken dance song and shoving Cheez-Its in my mouth.
I know not everyone feeds their kids like I do. I was teasing my cousin Kay one time, and told her, “I bet you never let your kid eat Goldfish off the floor,” and she said, “Um, I’m not sure he’s ever had Goldfish,” and right away I could see we were very different.
If it didn’t promote harmony in my house, I certainly wouldn’t buy Cheez-Its. Nor would I buy Easy Mac, Fruit Roll-ups, Campbell’s Mega Noodle Chicken Noodle Soup, Gummi Bears or mini-marshmallows (the Diva puts them on toast).
I’d most definitely still buy wine, of course. And to be honest, knowing what I know now, I might still buy Gummi Bears because they did manage to eliminate the rancid taste in my mouth during the Night of the Power Outage -- so much so that when the Tyrant quit singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Pee Pee (her brother taught her that version) and asked for some Gummi Bears, I had bad news.
“I ate them all,” I said. And then the power came back on.