Being a parent is hard. I get that. I love parenting my girls, and I am grateful for the opportunity to be a stay at home mom right now. And I accept that there are many annoying and downright undesirable things that come with being a parent. Like wakeful nights, dirty diapers, and even having your child vomit directly into your cleavage. But some things just have me throwing up my hands and whimpering "why?"
Why must my beloved younger daughter routinely poop right before we are due to head out to pick up Maya from school? It happens about 50% of the time, and when I say "right before" I don't mean within the half hour before leaving, but rather within minutes of leaving and often in the 2 minutes between dressing her in coat and boots and picking her up to carry her out the door. This little biorhythm she has going seems to be independent of her wake-up time, morning meals or even whether or not she has already soiled a diaper that morning. So far, we've managed to only be late picking up Maya once, but not for lack of trying on Chloe's part.
Why on earth does my 4 year old leave her socks lying around all over the place? Maya loves to be barefoot, and I'm ok with that, but the socks end up in every corner of the house EXCEPT the laundry hamper, which inevitably means there are also none in her drawer, despite the fact that she has well over a dozen pairs. This routinely results in a sock hunt to find socks she's stashed someplace that aren't too dirty to be worn again anytime we want to leave the house. On the upside, all her socks are identical, so I don't have the added worry of trying to find a matching pair. On the downside, Chloe has recently learned how to take off her socks too.
Why must Maya have such selective hearing? It's become common for Jeff or I to ask her nicely to do something three or four times. Then we get frustrated and raise our voices, at which point Maya frowns and tell us "You have to tell me nicely, then I will do it!" Yeah, 'cause that strategy was clearly working so well for me!
And the biggest one that leaves me throwing up my hands in despair ... why do my children both become noisy and/or demanding the second that I pick up the phone? It never fails! A few days ago, my girlfriend sent me a message via MSN asking it was a good time to call. All was quite, so I told her yes. In the time it took for me to walk over to the phone on the wall and pick it up on the first ring, my older daughter started making loud demands for a snack, and my youngest burst into tears.
How about you? What has you pleading for mercy at your house lately? I'd love to read your comments and stories.
Heh. Well, the youngest likes to poop while riding in the car - I'd say 3/4 of the time, she'll need changing when we arrive somewhere. This isn't a huge problem when we're going somewhere local (assuming that there is a place to change her there, which is rarely guaranteed), but if we're heading out for a longer trip it means finding a place to change her out on the highway somewhere - often a difficult quest.
ReplyDeleteThe selective hearing is certainly a thing. We don't like raising our voices, and the eldest doesn't like it when we do, and yet often needs to be told several times to do things; even things she has to do every day, like feeding her kitten. Also, her bladder is linked to her ears - when asked to do something, first she has to pee...
Not having any of my own yet, I do remember Mum saying that whenever she got on the phone it never failed that one of the kids (or the cats for that matter) would start demanding something. There was one time that the Siamese cat started yowling right next to her and her friend asked her who the baby was.
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