Thursday, May 1, 2014
We all do it at some point or another - our children are whining, we have 28 hours of things to do in a 24 hour day, just giving them that cookie or another 10 minutes on the 2DS or letting them "wait" to do their homework until later. Any parent that says they have never let their kids slide EVER is a damn bold-faced-liar ...... but see, the problem is...its a slippery slope.
A slipper slope coated in sticky lollipop hands and mediocre grades that ends with an eye twitching, slowly getting gray haired, ready to cry Mama. Listen and learn all you young bright eyed parents! This is your notice! Put down that lollipop and don't give me any lip about how they are just so cute, how can you say no, or just one won't hurt. It starts with the lollipop I tell you!! Ok, well, maybe not but damn it I have to blame someone!
Truth is, I did this. I let it get to this point where I am running around like a chicken with her head cut off trying to make everyone but myself happy. I am the one with the seven year old (hence forth known as Bug) who fights me to do homework (despite being proven capable - nice try kid ) and refuses to even pick up a bubblegum wrapper without whining and deflecting. I am the one with the 16mo (hence forth known as Tato) who won't sleep on her own, won't play on her own, and quite simply just doesn't do "alone" unless she is at someone else's house. I wrapped my son in bubble wrap and catered to him. I do it with my husband. I do it with my daughter. Hell in this house of three adults, two kids, and two cats I sometimes think the only person who appreciates me are the cats and for one of them its just because I feed her. How sad is it that with three able bodied people (myself, Dad, and Bug) that the only aid I get in my war on grime is a 70 year old man in a wheelchair.
So how do I fix it? How do you fix spoiled brats? Is there a self-help book out there somewhere I just have not seen yet? Someone with magical fix-em powers who can teach me the finer points of explaining to my children (I'm counting the "big kids" too at this point) that I am not an all-inclusive Robot house slave. I was not put on this God forsaken planet to find your socks and shoes because you didn't listen the first 800 times I told you to put them back where they belong. I was not put here to be talked at instead of to. I was not put on this planet to be ignored. And by all that is glorious I was not put on this planet to hunt you dirty underwear and hand scrub and pre-soak them because instead of throwing them in the wash you tried to clean up a juice spill and then threw them in your closet.
I am on overload. Full, absolute overload. Can I quit? Strike? No? DAMN IT!