It’s been a while, but it’s finally time to come out with it and empower myself: I am being abused. The pinching, the scratching, the hair pulling — it’s all very painful and I am stuck in this relationship with no where to go. Because if I go, she will be alone during the day because babies can’t go to work with daddies or corporate finance people would never get anything done. So, I stay in this abusive relationship at home… with my daughter.

She has entered a stage that makes her very grabby and I know it’s just her curiosity, but she’s is literally killing the cat. I don’t really have a tail and fur and take a dump in a box, but you know, for the sake of metaphors and all, I’m a cat.

Little Miss Madelyn is a trickster, too. She wahh wahh wahhs when it’s naptime, so we snuggle up in the big chair in her room and I rock back and forth and she lulls away into dreamland, sucking on the bottle, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The eyelids get heavy, the feet relax, her breaths become long and deep and then WHACK! Her little arm reaches out from its fake sleep, grabs my lip and twists it like I’m her Claymation Mommy, and digs her nails in deep to mark her territory.

Can babies be declawed? Will PETA get all up in my bidness about that?

It’s just all so shocking! What a faker she is, and what a sucker I am. Here I am thinking I have the most cherubic little lamb for a daughter, and then the pre-nap ritual turns into me rocking a baby who’s suddenly competing with Linda Blair for a movie role, but in real life.

Babies. Psshh. They make us all fat and keep us up all night and make stinky poops and then also have the nerve to physically beat up their moms. I literally had a scratch on my nose for a week that required me to cover it up with makeup! And I swear my hair is full of split ends, not from the dryer or flat iron, but from Madelyn’s tiny fingers pulling my strands one by one. I could make a brunette Barbie doll (is that Skipper?) coiffure with all the hair she’s pulled out. The other day, she bruised my mom’s lip with that twist maneuver she’s got up her onesie sleeve. I tell ya. Ruthless, these babies.

And yet. Sigh. I melt. With all the pain, I still keep running back for more. Even with all the abuse, I know she loves me and I love her.

But revenge is sweet, my friends. She may not realize it, but she’s paying for all that abuse now. You see, I put up embarrassing photos and exploit her on Born Friedman and 30 (yes, 30) years from now, her boyfriends will Google her and see this:

Hi Madelyn! Love ya! Mean it!