And after yet another significant absence, I will now whine at you

The very unflattering photo you see here was taken in the bathroom of a Target after and unpleasant happening at Chuck E. Cheese.  My dad is in town and we all went to get pizza with the big mouse as a belated celebration for Will's 6th birthday.

While we were there Zoe had waited very patiently for her turn at a video game that had a seat.  While she was playing a boy was sitting in the seat with her.  I walked up to see what was going on and she seemed fine.  But as soon as she was done this kid started to use his hips to push her off.  I put the tip of my right index finger on his shoulder and said "Stop pushing".  (Yeah, I'm admitting I touched the child. I don't want to get in a big debate about it okay? You'll see why in a second)  I had made the assumption that there wasn't a parent in the vicinity, because pushing someone out of the game you want to play is generally stopped by a parent when they are nearby.

Well, I made and ass outta u and me because this voice behind me said "HEY!  Did you just put your FINGER on my SON?"  I turned to see a man sitting on yet another game behind us, he'd been there the whole time, watching his kid push my kid.  I said I hadn't realized he was there and I was very sorry.  Had I seen him I would have just let him handle it, again, I apologized.

The guy stood up and was at least a foot taller than me.  What he said next is weird.  Here, this is what I recall "Yeah, well if that's how you want to do it."

I asked if there was anything else I could do other than take my daughter to play elsewhere.  He said "Yeah, you'd better just leave."

I walked away with my daughter feeling like an asshole weakling who was not only not able to stand up for myself I wasn't able to stand up for my DAUGHTER.  I had let the bully father of the bully boy who'd been pushing my daughter get away with bullying me.

I went back to the table and ended up bursting into tears telling Scott what happened.  Then I was embarrassed because I was crying and letting it bother me.  I managed to hold it together until we got to Target after our pizza/game free-for-all and ended up crying really hard in a bathroom stall.

After we came home I went to the only place in my house that is 100% mine, my closet.  I sat down on my pile of shoes, buried my face in my grandmother's fur coat and cried about a lot of stuff.

I've been struggling mightily with the current classwork in school.  I found myself actively dreading going to school one day last week. I've become pretty close to convinced that I'm not going to cut it in the industry.  So I cried about that.

I cried about the fact that my house is a mess and my father just came to visit.  My dad is here and there are piles of clean laundry on chairs in the living room and piles of clean laundry in the upstairs hallway and my couch has been torn up by the dogs.

And I'm so fucking TIRED all the time.  I cried about that for a while too.

I've got a voice in my head that says to shut up and suck up it's part of life, there are people out there a LOT more tired than I am and they have more children AND a clean house.  I don't have the energy to try and tell it to shut up right now.

And my eyes hurt.

Ow.

Amanda's beauty tip of the day:  when your eyes are swollen from a cry, massage ice cubes around them to help bring down the puffiness.