Kallan has friends over.
Noisy distracting friends who have been over for much of the day.
I am having trouble collecting my thoughts.
So I yell, “Hey, Kallan! Let’s have everyone go home at 3:00, OK? That will give you time to get ready to go to the sleepover.”
Kallan and her friends yell back, “OK!”
And then I hear Maj, all falsely thoughtful and musing . . . “Hmmmm, Kallan’s sleepover isn’t until 4:30. That is so weird that my mom needs you guys to go home at 3:00. It’s not like it will take Kallan 90 minutes to get ready. So my guess? Is that my mom is sick of you guys.”
So annoying.
So I walk into the room and explain, “I know Kallan won’t take long to get ready, but I need help cleaning the house before Kallan leaves. The extra time is for house cleaning.”
Yells of protest from my daughters and giggles from the friends.
And then it is 3:00 and the friends go home. Maj and Kallan stand in front of me, awaiting house-cleaning assignments.
I point at Kallan, “OK, Kallan? You are excused. Go do something quiet until it is time for me to drive you to your sleepover.”
Poof! Kallan is gone.
I turn to Maj, “Hey, a few questions for you, babe.”
Maj is sullen and suspicious, “What?”
“Who is in charge of when guests go home?”
“You are.”
“Who told those guests that I was sick of having them at our house?”
“I did.”
“That was rude.”
“It was the truth.”
“There are ways of telling the truth, Maj. Your way was rude.”
“My way was the truth.”
“So was my way. I did want them to go home so that Kallan could get organized for her sleepover. And part of that organization? Is that I would like some peace and quiet before I have to drive her to her friend’s house.”
“You’re just making that up.”
“Nope. I am not. But you made me offer another explanation about house-cleaning. You don’t want me to be a liar, do you? So now there has to be house-cleaning. Yay!”
“That makes no sense, Mother. No sense at all.”
“Perfect sense, Maj. So please start by unloading the dishwasher.”
“The whole dishwasher?”
“Duh.”
Maj opens the dishwasher, but continues protesting, “I am just one girl, Mother. You are making unreasonable demands and giving me overly harsh punishments. I know you don’t want to hear this news, but there it is.”
Sigh.
I watch as she stomps about the kitchen putting things away, “Maj, having you is not like having an 11 year old. I don’t know what it’s like, but it’s not like having an 11 year old.”
Maj grabs a pot and yanks open the cupboard in which it belongs, “Well, you are wrong again, Mother. Having me is exactly like having an 11 year old.”
She turns to stare at me angrily, “Because guess what? I am 11 and you are having me.”
Snort!
I laugh, “You have a point.”
She finishes the dishwasher, and then I have her fold a load of laundry and sweep the kitchen. She complains the whole time about how I am unreasonable and punitive and cruel. She pushes the broom around the kitchen, “You are having an overreacting day. I hope you are very proud, Mother. Another great day of overreaction for you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s like Opposite Day. You do the opposite of what a good mom would do. A good mom would have calmly explained that she needed some quiet before Kallan’s sleepover. You do the opposite overreacting thing of blaming me for saying what you should have said yourself.”
“Really, Maj? You want me to start sending your friends home by letting them know I am sick of having them over?”
“That would be the honest thing to do.”
“Yes, but do you want me to do that?”
Quiet for a moment, and then Maj relents, “Maybe not.”
“So do we understand each other, Maj?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
So I take the broom from Maj and she runs off. Gets her book and sits on the couch to read.
Not five minutes later, Mark arrives home. He walks in the house and says, “Hey, it’s quiet! Where are Kallan’s friends?”
And Maj says, “Mother sent them home for no good reason. And then she went insane.”
What . . . the . . . fuck?
So I send her to her room.
She refuses and stands there defiantly, “See, Mother? You are having a day of overreaction. You are doing the opposite of what a good mom would do.”
Fuck.
I get right in her face and I am pissed, “So I am guessing a good mother would take your cell phone away and send you to bed? Because I am so far doing the opposite of that. Go . . . to . . . your . . . room.”
She stares fiercely into my eyes for a moment, but then turns and races to her room, “See, Daddy? She is insane!”
Yay!
Christmas vacation!
So fucking awesome.
Sigh.
Oh I so can’t wait for all that! My 3.5 yr old and 2 yr old have no idea! Haha
Snort!
You can wait, lovely you.
Believe me . . . your time will come.
You can wait.
I fear for the pre-teens! Ahhh!
You fear for Maj?
No need to fear for Maj.
She more than holds her own.
Seriously.
Or do you mean you fear the pre-teen years at your house?
In which case, yes . . . be afraid.
Be very afraid.
Pre-teen years at my own house, I mean!
Trying to type on a touch screen isn’t all its cracked up to be!
Then yes . . .
Be afraid.
You are going to have so much fun when puberty really hits. I still have ptsd flashbacks from what I went through with my daughter.
Good lord.
Do not tell me this.
I am putting my fingers in my ears and saying LALALALALALALALALALA until you stop talking.
Augh.
I’ve said this before but I really dread the day when my child has a vocabulary that rivals mine. If her ability to flip over even when both her father and I are trying to hold her down to change her diaper says anything about her future attitude, I am in TROUBLE.
Hee hee!
I’m not sure flipping over while a diaper is being changed is a sign of future vocabulary and sassiness.
Just so you know?
Maj was always very cooperative about diaper changes.
Always.
My 3 year old had a small over having to eat dinner before playing outside with his new shovel. After a short tug of war with the shovel (I won, by the way) I came in the house and left him pouting.
After a few seconds, he came in the house and said, “You want a piece of me!?”
I can’t even imagine what the pre-teen years will bring.
A small tantrum…
Ugh.
I knew what you meant.
Your three year said . . . You want a piece of me?
Oh, that is beyond awesome.
I love that!
Me again. Yep your lovely pre teen made me feel guilty AGAIN for my former assolescent behavior. Gosh the guilt I feel from reading these posts good thing they are beyond the funniest things ever. Yep will keep reading and yep will reply whenever that guilt bug hits me. (Im expecting a lot)
Assolescent behavior?
Oh, I like that phrase!
I may steal that, if you don’t mind.
And as long as I make you laugh?
We’re all good.
Maj makes me laugh all the time.
I try to keep some of that laughter inside, because she also?
Drives me nuts.
Steal away. My mom coined it when I was, oh I don’t Maj’s age. Ha. Something tells me Maj and I would have been bff back in the day and every mothers worse nightmare. Bitch Barbie to the max I was. If its any consult after college my mom became my bff. I talk to her everyday and I apologize anytime Maj makes me feel guilty. Ha. Just think a decade more to go. You can do it!
Maj is all angelic when she is with anyone outside of our family.
Which is good . . . I like it this way better than the alternative.
But a decade of this special “just for the family” treatment?
Yay.
Plus also?
Ack.
O.M.G. Serious LOL
“Mother sent them home for no good reason. And then she went insane.”
You are strong. Very strong. I foresee a very clean house or a daughter who lives in her room with no cell phone by the end of vacation.
And lots more laughs for us when you retell it lol :)
Maj has difficulty letting things go.
She is way fucking stubborn.
Good thing I am so easygoing.
Ahem.
Yes
Very good thing :)
Hush.
Well there is this to be said for having boys: they torture each other in so much simpler ways – like sitting on each other and hitting each other for real during pretend fights, and grabbing the TV remote out of each other’s hands in the war for channel choice supremacy.
But also? I love those girls of yours.
Hope the next few days go smoothly. (One can always hope, right?)
You know what’s funny?
Most of the day was awesome! Really really lovely.
But then it all turned.
And in the short amount of time I had available today in which to write something?
This is the moment in which I was stuck.
It wasn’t our whole day.
But it was the moment right before I sat down to write something.
And so that’s what flowed from my fingers.
Plus also?
I love these girls of mine more than anything.
They are crazy stubborn loons, but I love them with all my heart.
Maj is lucky you are a patient mother. There is a reason my daughter is an only child.
I wish you the best of luck as puberty approaches.
My daughter should so write about the day she was sure she would die.
Maj does not appreciate her luck, but she is way lucky.
And I want to hear your daughter’s story!
Tell her to email me!
I have already decided to farm Darling Girl out to her grandparents when she’s a teenager. They just don’t know it yet. I don’t think they’ll be terribly excited about the idea…
Hee hee!
I cannot imagine farming Maj out to anyone.
She would scare the SHIT out of them.
They would send her right back.
Pretty sure.
Oh yes, I’m sure that this child would get sent right back too! She’s much to sassy and stubborn for anyone to keep for long and that’s at TWO! I fear for us when she turns 11!
I know.
We are doomed to actually raise these children of ours.
Damn.
Kris, I have been reading your blog for quite a long time now and am just now commenting. I have two girls – 4yrs (2 weeks until 5) and 18mos. Reading your stories of your girls (and everything else) is fantastic! I have to say it makes me a bit scared of what is to come, though. Both of my girls are extremely stubborn already. Oh boy.
Lauren -
I am so glad that you have decided to step out of the shadows and comment today!
So nice to meet you!
If your children are as stubborn as mine are?
You are in for some big big fun.
You have a sense of humor, correct?
That helps a lot.
My 3 year old daughter keeps saying to me, with absolute fire in her eyes, “You are not in charge of me mommy.” Should I be worried? Because I am. Worried.
You should be perhaps worried a little bit.
Maybe.
But I’m sure you have fire in your eyes as well.
You can take her.
Snort!
I love how you calmly deal with your girls.
I could learn so much from you!
That part where I said, “So I send her to her room?”
There may have been a little yelling there.
Ahem.
next time you and maj are in a fight, can you please punish her by sending her to MY house to clean it? pretty please? ;)
Wouldn’t that be awesome?
I would so love to send her out as a maid to all my friends’ houses.
Maj would turn me in to CPS in a heartbeat.
She so would.
You deal with a ragey Maj much calmer than I deal with a ragey Eddie. And he is only 18 months. I am told it is because we are too similar to each other. In which case? If Maj is an indication of 11 year olds who can get their rage on? A ragey Eddie at 11? Is what will push me over the edge into true insanity.
and when that happens? I will need you to send booze.
Maj makes me very angry, but I try very hard not to let her see that in the moment.
Later?
I tell her that she made me very angry.
When I am calm, I discuss how she made me angry.
But I try not to do it in the moment.
I try.
I am still learning this. Eddie and I both have low levels of frustration. He throws and hits when he is frustrated. I would like to, but you know…I’m the grown-up. So I have to learn to calm down and show how adults make good choices when they are frustrated. But when he is not looking? I throw things.
When your child is not looking?
It is fine to throw some things, to yell and vent, to complain and whine.
I do those things in private.
No one is perfect.
No one.