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After we got home and Clara Jane napped, she wanted to go outside. Not wanting to play in the mudpit that is our backyard, we went to the front so she could ride her trike and draw on the driveway with chalk. I'd planned to stay inside, but since B. took the bubble machine for its inaugural run, I put Chloe on her leash and joined them.

I wish I hadn't.

The people who aren't smart enough to prevent their two-year-old from escaping via an unlocked screen door with a missing window pane are having a cookout. A part of the evening's festivities? Teaching the two-year-old the proper use of the word "fucktard".

B. and Clara Jane just walked in as I was writing the last paragraph. He said, "That business about our kid being too smart for this school district? You better believe there's no way I'm letting her go to school with that [gesturing to the Fucktard house]. Those kids are doomed."

Parenting is hard. I'm the first person to admit that because I've struggled with it. Continue to struggle with it. Will always struggle with it. I lost my temper with Clara Jane on Friday night and felt horrible about it. She was overtired and uncooperative. B. was trying to change her Pull-Up prior to dinner, and she was fighting him every inch of the way. I intervened, and when she fought me I decided that was it. I didn't care that it was only 7 PM and she hadn't eaten dinner; she was going to bed N O W.

I rocked her for 20 minutes. She was asleep within the first five, but I didn't want to put her down. I was afraid that if I put her down, I'd be abandoning her and she'd think I didn't love her. Even though I'd gotten angry, I know I did the right thing. She was tired and needed sleep more than she needed dinner. She slept over 13 hours and has been a delight ever since. I gave her what she needed. I just wish I'd did it a smidge more calmly.

Not once did I hit my child in this. I did raise my voice, but I didn't yell or call her names. I had to do my damnedest - and oh my God it is so fucking hard sometimes - to keep my own frustration and irritation under control and think, "Gee ... my kid's doing something wrong. What can I do to guide her through this situation, since that's my fucking job."

This all sounds so self-righteous. I'm trying to not be self-righteous. Really. About a nanosecond after my anger flared at the neighbor when she screamed at her toddler to get his ass back in the house, I had a pang of empathy. This woman has four kids. The two-year-old isn't the youngest. I've rarely seen her partner without a beer in his hand. He comes home daily around 11 AM with a case of Bud. They fight a lot, often on the front porch with the two littlest kids watching through the screen door. Not that her shitty conditions excuse bad parenting, but it sure as hell doesn't make her job any easier.

While the fucktard language lessons were transpiring tonight, three houses down the block we witnessed one of the finest examples of drunk driving we've seen on this street in, well, probably an hour or so. Another neighbor arrived home, completely plowed. And speaking of plowing, that's exactly what he did to his trash dumpster. Plowed into it. Luckily, his cat, who had taken refuge behind the dumpster, escaped unharmed.

Later, Mr. Plow went to his backyard to build a drunken bonfire, shortly putting it out because no one would come outside and play with him.

I am so goddamn sick of living in a neighborhood where I can't take my daughter outside on a nice evening without her hearing people scream at each other. Or seeing drunks stagger around. Or worry that some loaded jackass is going to careen off the street and kill her in our own driveway.

On Friday the street department finally made it to our block and removed the pile of storm debris that's been outside our house since December, which will hopefully improve our chances of selling. We sealed the deal with the new real estate agent Saturday. He's got until July 14th to unload this shithole. If he can't do it, we're calling one of those places that buys ugly houses and rips off the owners in the process. We no longer care. We just want out.

There are no guarantees that our next neighborhood is going to be any better. We're going by what friends in the area have told us, the school district, and quite honestly, by the way the neighborhood looks. In the 16 years I've lived away from my parents' house, I've never lived in a decent neighborhood. Ever. It's never bothered me much, but now that I have a kid, it bothers me. Although at least where we currently live, I know who's drunk and verbally abusing their kids. Who knows? Maybe the in the "nice" neighborhood, the same shit goes on, but the people perpetrating it have enough shame to keep it in the house.