Author: Jackie Pick

Jackie Pick is a former teacher and current writer living in the Chicago area. She is a contributing author to multiple anthologies, including Multiples Illuminated, So Glad They Told Me: Women Get Real about Motherhood, Here in the Middle, as well as the and the literary magazines The Sun and Selfish. She received Honorable Mention from the Mark Twain House and Museum for her entry in the Royal Nonesuch Humor Writing Competition. Jackie is a contributing writer at Humor Outcasts, and her essays have been featured on various online sites including McSweeney's, Belladonna Comedy, Mamalode, The HerStories Project, and Scary Mommy. A graduate of the University of Chicago and Northwestern University, Jackie is co-creator and co-writer of the award-winning short film Fixed Up, and a proud member of the 2017 Chicago cast of Listen To Your Mother.

Don’t Poke the Dragon with a Stick

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It’s that day. The day everyone expects I’d have since I told folks I was having a third.

Monkey J. decided to test limits and sound barriers this morning. It’s even money he tested crack, too, because I swear…
Monkey L. has a cough that is positively medieval. I kept him home from camp. The cough has not stopped him from talking incessantly (and over me) for 6 hours straight.
The boys decided to antagonize each other most of the time they were together.
They decided they were very thirsty for anything they couldn’t get themselves (meaning milk, mostly). They decided they wanted all things on top shelves.
They decided that my crossing their paths was the right time to ask for anything. Everything. Loudly. Repeatedly, even if I already answered.
It was a day of testing my resolve to discipline unemotionally and not take misbehavior personally.
The Beany Baby decided to be a baby and cry most of the day…she cried more today than I think she has in the last three months combined.

Monkey L. decided to come check on me and ask for some attention every two minutes as I hung laundry outside (I’m feeling very colonial, thank you very much.)  A ten minute job turned into an hour. Most of my tasks were interrupted.

This is what many people thought every day was going to be like for me.

I avoided The Scribble. Narrowly. But it’s been exhausting. My brain hurts. I think I have PMS but I can’t be sure because my cycle is fouled up due to baby, pill, and procedure. My hair is doing the post-baby fall out.  There is a bag of carrots in the fridge that is so old it liquefied and I’m afraid to handle it without a hazmat suit. I want to write. I don’t think the music director is going to follow through with doing the show she commissioned me to write.  I seem to know a zillion people who are at a low point in their depression (Why do I know so many people who are clinically depressed?!!)

So when DH started teasing me about something inconsequential, when he started arguing with me when I told him I don’t want a babysitter on Friday, when he joked about the PMS…

I said, “Don’t poke the dragon with a stick.”

Will someone PLEASE make me a sign with that on it?  Not a t-shirt. I don’t want to have to do any more laundry. Ever.   I can point to a sign, even if interrupted.