Neglected

So, you get through your first day back in work, having constantly thought of the baby daughter you abandoned, cast aside and discarded in exchange for cold hard cash. You hurriedly leave the workplace in order to race home and cuddle the little bundle of joy who wonders why she has all of a sudden been rendered surplus to your requirements.

You speed home imagining every second of the reunion. You screech up the driveway, plough through the front door and race down the hall to see...HER. And, on noticing your beaming face, she smiles. The warmest, most familiar, most loving, most "there's my Mum!" smile you have ever seen.
You scoop her up in your arms and cuddle and kiss and tickle and nibble and breathe in every inch of her loveliness. You stroke her perfectly soft skin, ruffle her fuzzy thatch of hair and feel her tiny fingers grasp yours so readily. You talk with her, you play, you ask about her day. You give her a few more kisses in case she has just forgotten about the last set. You can't believe you missed a moment of her.

She smiles. She cuddles you back.
But she hasn't forgotten what you did. How you sold her out. Deserted her. Shuffled off into the sunset without as much as a backwards glance. So. Payback.
How can she hit you where it really hurts? Where will it count most? What can you just not take? Then she finds it. The sweet spot.

She seeks out that tiny shred of your conscience that is still intact and bides her time, waiting until a good hour or so has passed and you have begun to really relax from work. That way you are totally unsuspecting. Then, she attacks.
LAUNCHING HER WHOLE BODY FROM THE SEAT YOU JUST PUT HER IN SO THAT SHE TUMBLES COMPLETELY FROM IT AND LANDS ON THE FLOOR, EYE FIRST - ALL WHILE UNDER YOUR SUPERVISION.



She lay face first on the laminate. Then came the cry. I snatched her from the floor, lifted her to my body and saw it. A big, bleeding, that's right b-l-e-e-d-i-n-g, red scratch under her sad little eye. After her first ever day of feeling neglected, forsaken and dumped, The Poop now has her first proper war wound.
Excellent. 

The cunningly heartbreaking eye

Shoddy Parenting:
Part One: Ensuring A Nervous Disposition
Wherever possible, try to undermine your child's mental, emotional and physical well being all on the same day - thus destroying the maximum amount of their established comfort, security and trust in you in the most efficient manner.
And for tomorrow -
Part Two: Destroying Their Dreams And Ambitions In The Hope They Will Lead A Miserable Unfulfilled Life