I hate those moms who think their children are perfect and are able to overlook the things that make parenting so dang hard. When I meet a mom who never complains about her kids I immediate wonder what drug she’s on or if she’s got vodka in her coffee mug. It’s frankly annoying to be around people who gush about their kids all the time and never get irritated or mad or frustrated. These people make me feel inadequate, like I’m a lousy mom.
Truth be told, my children do drive me crazy. Oh, I love them fiercely, but I also lose my patience and sometimes, well, I just lose it.
My sons fight. A lot. Well, it’s more like bickering. They are a sibling version of Edith and Archie. There’s an incessant grumble going on under our roof. Sometimes I can ignore it. Sometimes it makes me think a recording of the arguing could be used as an effective prisoner of war interrogation tactic. I try to tell myself that there will come a time that I miss the noise and activity.
Soon enough Bird and Deal will be aloof teenagers moping in their room or meandering with with friends. There will come a time they stop talking to me and will be too big to climb into my lap for a story. They will find me to be a bore, a drag, a dork. I will cramp their style and embarrass them. It’s coming. I know it. I tell myself these things at the height of fights, wrestling matches, temper tantrums, and screaming fits. I tried to whisper this to myself when Bird broke a lamp I was particularly fond of in the living room. I tried again when he broke yet another lamp in my office. I shuddered as I channeled Carol Brady when I yelled something about not playing ball in the house.
One day they will leave, and I will miss the dirt and noise.
This mantra of mine hasn’t been working for me, but I’m not going to stop.
There will come a time that my little boys will become teenagers and then men. They will leave the happy nest we call home, all by design. Such is the nature of parenting. Sometimes the nostalgia and mortality of it all overwhelm me and make me weepy. Other times the fighting gets the best of me and I can’t wait for Bird and Deal to have their own space. I wince at the thought of it and then retract my thoughts in hopes that the Fates were otherwise occupied and didn’t hear me.
Despite my tussles with Time, there are a a few things I will decidedly not miss about having two little boys at home.
In no particular order:
LEGO bricks underfoot, in my purse, in my cupholders, in the lint trap of the dryer
Trails of dirt, mud, and red clay tracked through the house
Crumbs crumbs and more crumbs
Fart jokes, especially at the dinner table
Finding clumps of mulch in pants pockets that clog the washing machine
Multiplication tables
Whining
Sass
Watching G-rated movies (Gnomeo & Juliet anyone?)
Beyblades, Bakugan, Pokemon, and other utterly stupid toys
Pee sprayed in the darndest places
Stepping or sitting in said pee in the middle of the night
What about you? What will you not miss when your children go from ruling the roost to flying the coop?
THE PEE, OMG, THE PEE. I was hoping that was going to get better once we moved further away from “just potty trained,” but we’re WAY past that time now, so I guess I just have to accept it for the next 15 years. I will also not miss the tantrums or this new thing Dean does which involves him refusing to get out of the car if he’s not happy with where we are. That’s my favorite.
The smells. The various smells of a boy going through puberty should be bottled and dropped from drones on our enemies.
I’m gonna add to the pee chorus: pee laundry.
Ugh, the pee. I count down the weeks until we no longer share a bathroom!
I’m just about there, with a 15 year old and a 9 year old. The thing I will miss the least is having to filter everything. I hate having to turn off the TV or the radio when a kid walks in the room, or being careful with every word, or frantically trying to pause a Youtube video because it isn’t appropriate. Nowadays, my older one just about dies laughing on the rare occasion when I break out the profanity, and I think it’s as much his delight at being ‘in on the joke’ as the shock of hearing his mom drop an F-bomb. Watching him belly laugh at Beverly Hills Cop, or Eddie Izzard’s stand-up, or a Youtube video, is just priceless.
Now the one thing I really miss – how CHEAP little kids are. Everything from the food, to the clothes, to the activities, to the toys. I didn’t realize how good I had it until the first time I had to buy Nick a pair of men’s size shoes. EEK! And as expensive as LEGO is, I’d rather pay $29.99 for a Star Wars LEGO set than a few hundred for an iPod Touch and a hefty iTunes App store card to go with it.
I will not miss having to unmake, wash, and remake two kids’ beds nearly every day…yes, PEE! Hoping to move beyond this stage soon.
It’s one thing–not too bad–to go on the porch and dump out the half-cup of sand and/or mulch from the girls’ shoes. But picking tiny mulch-bits out of socks before I put them in the washer infuriates me.
I almost wrote that I won’t miss having to worry one of them is going to do something physically crazy and potentially injurious at any given moment (e.g., hanging and swinging from Rapunzel “hair” from our 15-foot balcony, or climbing to the top of a 50-foot tree). But then I realized that’s just going to continue, though in different, more dangerous forms. Yikes.
Though I wish they’d be kinder to each other (and they often are kind, when they’re not being physically and verbally awful), I actually sort of crack up at how creatively they fight. Noe (3) recently: “Ava, when you’re not looking I’m going to take down your regular bed and fill it full of electrical wires and put it back.” Creative and hilarious–like something out of Roald Dahl.
– Lea
Love this.