How good a mother are you?

Take this special quiz!

1. Your child jars you out of a sound sleep at 3 AM by crying loudly and insistently. You:
   1. pull a pillow over your head in the hope that it will either drown out the crying or asphyxiate you quickly and painlessly
   2. vault out of bed and scamper to his room without delay
   3. wait five minutes to see if he really means it
   4. poke your snoring partner repeatedly in the nads until he irritably swats away your hand, then trudges down the hall simply to get away from you.

2. Your child won't stop crying, despite rocking, feeding, singing, reading, jiggling, walking, shushing, and Tylenol. You immediately suspect that he has:
   
   1. an ear infection
      
   2. an erupting tooth
      
   3. realized his pajamas make him look like a freakin' clown, and is howling in fury at your betrayal
      
   4. become bored in the night and decided to practice his Godzilla noises
      
   5. accidentally stepped in a bear trap

3. Come morning, your child is still miserable. You:
   
   1. call the doctor as soon as the office is open and demand an appointment
      
   2. wait a couple of hours before calling, offering him increasingly cold and rubbery chew toys, to see if he improves
      
   3. walk him around the room, crooning loving warnings into his ear, reminding him that his one-year employee review is coming up
      
   4. forego a shower — heretofore sacrosanct — so that you might take him to the doctor's office
      
   5. chalk it up to an adolescent snit and sign him up for the next session of Outward Bound

4. The doctor has diagnosed a raging ear infection. Its cause is obviously:
   
   1. the fact that your child is not breast-fed
      
   2. the fact that your child attends day care
      
   3. the fact that you allowed your child to shove an entire fistful of Earth's Best Garden Vegetable into his ear, and laughed the whole time because it was so goddamned funny — well, it was
      
   4. the fact that kids simply get these things from time to time
      
   5. the fact that you've been carefully swabbing his ears with Johnson and Johnson's newest variety of Q-Tip, Soft 'n' Virulent

5. To combat your child's ear infection, you:
   
   1. bring out a heavy arsenal of antibiotics, feeling indignant when the doctor absolutely refuses to prescribe just a whiff of Cipro — "C'mon, what can it hurt?"
      
   2. apply a warm, chewed-up poultice made of thistle leaves, ambergris, cayenne, and garlic to your child's feet
      
   3. shove an entire fistful of Earth's Best Garden Vegetable into his ear, and laugh the whole time because it's so goddamned funny — well, it might be
      
   4. do nothing, reasoning that ear infections generally run their course without causing permanent damage, enduring the crying with a serene heart and gentle resignation

6. The next morning your child obviously feels much better. You:
   
   1. call the day care center to say he'll be staying at home today so that you can give him some extra cosseting
      
   2. call the day care center to ask whether you should keep him at home, just to be safe
      
   3. call the day care center and feel ridiculously disappointed when the director reminds you that it's an in-service day for the staff, and no children are attending today
   
   

So how'd you score?