Because, sometimes I find it a tad difficult to like my child. There. I said it. No sugar.
This comes from a place where I don't like digging, that I try not think about but its a place that is thrust upon me when I reach the end of my patience and reasoning, when I go all bad-ass mama and morph into Momzilla.
I appear to look my normal self, which can be deceptive especially to the poor Darling Husband. Maybe the bulging eyes and throbbing vein on my forehead give me away a little. Maybe its the twitching of my hands wanting to shake little shoulders and bellow "Why can't you just LISTEN to me and not touch that! / play in the sooty fire grate with all the ash and touch everything you come into contact with! / leave the phone alone and stop pressing Redial! / stop jumping in the puddle of water that my aging washing machine emits with every load / chucking sand onto the freshly swept pavement / sticking twigs into the dogs eyes.
And potty training has its own heading here. Just TELL me when you need to go, instead of letting go and then stomping in the warm puddle and seeing how far you can drag the pee trail.
Now I know you're all saying "But Jude, he is only 2.5 years old, he is still learning to identify his urges." Yes, I know. I am a reasonable adult (forget about the PMS days/week of hormonal hell, okay) and given a healthy amount of sleep and wine I can usually be a good mama and get on with the clean up job (for the umteenth time). But a lot of the time it just doesn't go down like that.
And then I end up feeling rubbish for snapping and bitching and wishing the child would just Leave Me Alone. I feel guilty for longing for one of those afternoons of peace and quiet when I was single when I could actually read a book. Guilty for wanting to slip away on my own and take the dogs for a walk like I used to, just me and the field and the wind in my hair. A day to do my arts and crafts ideas that I keep thinking about but never have the time to do for fear of little hands knocking over paint cans or cutting themselves on rusty garden shears.
And then I get a little twinge of fear. Fear that I will get this me-time but maybe not in the attractively packaged promise of freedom that I wish for. Stuff happens and our children can be taken from us in an instant. Yes, I am well aware of that. I have friends who have gone through that hell and I can't imagine being able to live through it. And thats where the guilt comes into it. Because I know I would feel punished for not treasuring every moment, however trivial and mundane, that I have with my child.
We were discussing potty training, bedtime training and just general parental frustration after a particular annoying bout of TTT (toddler tantrum time) at my parent's home.
Let me paint the picture. The Boy has a fixation on balls. Rugby balls, tennis balls, soccer balls, ping pong balls, golf balls, all balls are deserving of my child's undivided attention. And he has pretty good ball skills even at this tender age. (No credit to his mother who is rubbish in anything sports related.) This pleases us, particularly The Darling Husband who, I suspect, has visions of his son enjoying national and, dare we hope, international sports fame. However, accompanying this fascination with balls is the urge to kick, throw and whack said balls. A kindred spirit, my sports-mad brother has a treasure trove of all sorts of balls residing in his room. Luke discovered this collection and enjoys moving it into the lounge, resulting in my dad's nervous twitch, considering he has just invested in a brand spanking new HD plasma tv inconveniently situated in close striking distance to flying balls.
I have recently noticed that my brother's door has quietly been closed before we, (the National Lampoon's Grizwalds), have descended upon Oupa and Ouma's house. I imagine this is in the hope that it will deter their grandson from unpacking the balls and he will settle for playing with Lego and hand-me-down Barbies.
No such luck. My son gets an A+ for persistence and, as a toddler does, whines and moans and nags till he gets the object of his desire. (I can hear the crowds chanting "Don't give in!")
So he got a rugby ball to play with. On condition that "play with" meant "no kicking or throwing". ( I can also hear you saying "C'mon, what fun is that?"). This rule had to be firmly established as The Darling Husband had troubling visions of having to replace the new plasma screen after a randomly hurled ball has knocked it useless and obsolete.
So. NO kicking or throwing, okay?
Our instructions were barely cold and the Child was already lining up to kick the ball into the stratosphere.
Encouraged to "follow through" on my threats "coz thats the only way they will learn and take you seriously" we all endured the ensuing bitchingtantrum. A while later he was happily dressing dollies and smashing Lego to pieces. Its all in the follow-thru.
But the point I want to make is that our children just seem to sap the strength and resolve from our good parenting intentions with their persistence and stubbornness E.V.E.R.Y day.
My mother laughingly mentioned a book that she'd heard of called Go The Fuck To Sleep by Adam Mansbach www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/17/go-the-fuck-to-sleep-hit. Now while I have never sworn at my child, I know I certainly have uttered big bad words with him within earshot (tsk tsk). But I can TOTALLY empathize with the author's utter frustration one feels when one's child will Just.Not.Co-operate. Why is it so difficult just to listen and obey one's parents??
I have a feeling this is an ageless appeal and expect to be asking the same thing still many years to come.
God, give me strength. Pleeeeeeeeease!
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