’tis the season of barely tolerable behavior
Is it my imagination? Or is there something about my child’s half-birthday that turns her into a crazy person? It starts almost exactly at the halfway point, lasts a month or two, and then she is sane again. Eighteen months seemed okay, 2.5 was delightful, but I have downright chilling memories of 3.5, including a ludicrous hour-long struggle with the principles of “time out” before I realized that I should just kick that particular technique to the curb because it did not work for us. That was back when I was still reading parenting manuals, and before I understood that those experts knew no more than I did. Wait, what’s that noise? Is it the sound of a million authors of parenting books shrieking with anger and trying to hit me with their little expert hands? Oh parenting experts! You’re angry! You’re really, really angry! But hands are not for hitting, so find me when you calm down and then maybe we can go to the park.
I think 4.5 was the time of Being Entirely Too Physical With One’s Friends, Despite Their Protests Or Tears. Five and a half featured emotional meltdowns and door-slamming, 6.5 was the era of stomping and backtalk. And now, the summer of 7.5, we have a weird hybrid of nitpicking, contradicting, and blaming! The blaming! Did you know it is my fault? It is entirely my fault.
Just this morning I accidentally stepped on her foot as I was trying to leave for work.
Nora: Arrggggh!
Me: Sorry! I didn’t mean to step on you! [kiss; hug; deliberate silence on the topic of how she loves to walk DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF ME]
Nora [incredibly aggrieved]: WHY did you step on my foot?
Me: Well, I didn’t do it on purpose! Does it feel better yet?
Nora: No. [pause for dramatic wincing and toe-clutching] I think I need an ice pack.
Me [sympathy wearing off, a tad]: Go get one, if you think it will help.
Nora: I don’t know where they ARE!
Me: A clue to the ice pack’s location is in its very name!
Nora [starting to lose her mind]: Are they in the FREEZER?
Me: Yes!
Nora: WHY do you ALWAYS put them in the FREEZER! That makes them TOO COLD!
Me [getting the dangerously-cheery Cartman’s-mom voice]: Cold is what makes an ice pack useful! And you are overreacting, and it is getting ridiculous. Sorry you’re upset, hope your toe feels better, I’m going to work, love you bunches, see you tonight.
Nora: You NEVER listen to me.
So true. Never. All I do is injure you, keep the first-aid supplies in a ludicrous location, and then breeze out the door to my full-time job. I certainly didn’t snuggle you, listen to morning monologues about Harry Potter and Zoo Tycoon, toast your bagel and cut up your strawberries, and watch you show off your muscles on your doorway chin-up bar. You know, AFTER running three miles and BEFORE going to work.
(That last bit sounded self-congratulatory and indulgent and I apologize. I don’t expect any sort of medal, I am just feeling a bit martyred today. Maybe I’ll get lucky and have a fabulously gory and overdramatic death, just like real martyrs!)
—mimi smartypants enjoys a nice vat of boiling oil.