i've mentioned before that driving with my children can be a hectic and stressful event. but the most driving that i usually do is 30 minutes at a time, tops. 30 minutes isn't nearly enough time for my girls to prove just how over-the-edge they can drive me. this weekend, however, was my oldest sister's birthday, so my middle sis and i took a road trip to louisville for a "sister's weekend". and ella and madelyn went with us. it was during this excursion that my children reached their full annoying backseat passenger potential.
i knew that the drive wasn't going to be a pleasant one when madelyn's first reaction upon learning that she'd be visiting her cousin abigail for the weekend was, "but it takes soooo long to get there!" had abigail been coming to visit us, she would have been ecstatic. but there's something about riding for 2 1/2 hours in a car that drains the fun out of everything for a child. when she realized that she had left her nintendo ds at gran and papaw's house, it became all that much worse. i mean, she might have to read a book or color or something else old-fashioned and un-electronic. god forbid.
but madelyn isn't the one i was really worried about, it's ella. because she's younger, ella tends to be a little less tolerable in the car. or at mall. or walmart. i attribute much of this to her age. but honestly, lots of it has to do with her personality. not that she doesn't have an amazing one. in fact, she has tons of personality. she is smart and spunky, a little mischievous, a total ham, and absolutely hilarious. but she is also extremely short tempered.
madelyn's only real fault during the whole trip was her incessant talking and need to be entertained. she loves her aunt jen dearly, and insisted that the two either be playing hangman, or was constantly bugging her to play some sort of game on her iphone. then of course, there's the whole "i'm hungry" complaint, although both had eaten breakfast before we left the house. jennifer brought sausage balls, so i was set, but the girls complained that they didn't want sausage balls. so when we stopped in bowling green for gas, we also bought slim jims and mt. dew (at madelyn's request...what was i thinking? as if madelyn needs any more energy...). and jennifer and i, who had already sucked down one red bull a piece, also bought 2 cups of coffee.
ella first got mad when i attempted to listen to a song that she didn't want to listen to. she is currently into the pixies, red hot chili peppers, and eartha kitt's version of "santa baby." so a screaming fit ensued. she got mad when madelyn spoke, when it was too hot, when her coat bothered her, when her drink was empty, when the sun shone in her eyes, and when jennifer and i tried to carry on a conversation. no matter what happened, she was ill.
but the icing on the cake was when i glanced in the rearview and noticed that she was drawing on her window. she had been very good and quiet for some time, and jennifer and i had actually enjoyed getting the chance to talk and laugh with each other for the first time since we left olmstead. normally, i wouldn't have said anything, but the windows weren't fogged up, so i wasn't quite sure how she was drawing anything. curiosity got the best of me so i had to ask. "ella, what are you drawing on the window with?"
about that time i saw her reach her pointer and middle fingers up into each nostril and proceed to paint her masterpiece.
"oh my gosh, are you snot painting on my window!!!" i screamed.
wrong response.
for the remainder of our ride--30 minutes which seemed to last for an eternity--we got to hear the yelling and screaming and crying of an insulted, embarrassed, and ticked off 3 year old.
moral of the story: if your child is being good, don't bother them. no matter what they're doing or what they're smearing on your car window.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Thursday, December 2, 2010
mornings at the roberts house...enter at your own risk
my weekday mornings are treacherous. sometimes i wonder if anybody else goes through the insanity that i do on a daily basis, but then i remember that i'm not the only mother in the world who has 2 young daughters. somehow, though, i'm convinced that there can't possibly be any 2 children in the world more dramatic, more demanding, and more emotional than my own.
madelyn has finally gotten to the age where she is fairly responsible in regards to getting up, dressing herself, and fixing her own breakfast. some mornings, she has on her jacket and her book bag is on her shoulder before i've even gotten out of the shower. but there are other times when she is so very, very slow. earlier this week, for example, it was time to walk out the door and she wasn't even close to being ready...because she had spent 20 minutes braiding a section of her hair and she hadn't even eaten yet. or there are times when she's in the middle of eating pancakes and she feels the need to run into the bathroom where i'm fixing my hair just to tell me something funny that a student in her class said 3 days earlier. it's the random, time-consuming tidbits like this that make me long for the day when she finally understands the concept of time.
and then there's ella. if i think back really hard, i can probably remember a time when mornings with ella were easy. or at least a time when they didn't make me want to pull out every hair on my head. but for the time being, those memories are lost, replaced only by kicking, crying, screaming fits of rage.
ella tends to have anger issues from time to time. she gets very upset over very minute details. i can't blame her; she comes by it honest. but at 6:30 in the morning, while i'm wrapped in a towel with wet hair and frantically running around trying to let the dog out to pee and put waffles in the toaster and brush my teeth, the last thing i want to do is deal with ella screaming about a pair of socks.
a few weeks ago, i made the mistake of answering ella's question, "what do i wear?" with the response "i don't care...whatever you want." minutes later she appeared in the doorway of my bedroom wearing a floor length satin dress that madelyn had worn when she was a flower girl a couple years earlier. i couldn't help but laugh. but that was the wrong reaction.
"dooooooon't laaaaaaaugh at meeeeeee!!!"
for the next 30 minutes, the ceiling in our bathroom felt like it was about to cave in, as ella lied on the floor in her bedroom kicking and wailing at the top of her lungs. and if she's not mad about an outfit, she's ticked off that she has to get out of bed because she's "sweepy"...or that she doesn't want to brush her teeth because the toothpaste is too "spicy"...or that madelyn looked at her wrong....or that she put her panties on backwards.
but it's not all my children's fault that i can never make it to work on time. or that i'm stressed out beyond belief before 8:00 every morning. i have to take some responsibility for my own actions. perhaps i hit the snooze button a few too many times in the morning. and maybe it wouldn't hurt to pick the girls' outfits out the night before. heck, it wouldn't hurt to pick out my own clothes the night before. just this morning, as i desperately attempted to button a pair of my skinnier jeans and then screamed "never get fat! you'll be miserable!" at my 7 year old as i flung the stupid things back in the closet, i wished that i had already decided upon what i was going to wear...preferably a pair of sweatpants. a little organization and preparation on my own part would probably cut the stress factor in half.
but i'm a self proclaimed procrastinator. i used to start on research papers the day before they were due. last sunday, i woke up early, but then mopped floors and cleaned house up until the last minute and ended up being late for church. but i've often found that not planning tends to work out pretty good for me, too. spontaneous, carefree nights of just hanging out at the house are always more fun than a pre-planned evening out. and the birth of my oldest child, madelyn--one of the two most precious gifts with which i've ever been blessed--wasn't exactly planned. but oh how much joy she has brought to my life.
so maybe i scream like a crazy lady every morning before work. and maybe my coworkers avoid me until my coffee has kicked in. maybe i go to work with mismatched socks, occasionally send my oldest to school with crazy hair, and let my youngest wear a flower girl dress to gran and papaw's house. all moms do that...right?
madelyn has finally gotten to the age where she is fairly responsible in regards to getting up, dressing herself, and fixing her own breakfast. some mornings, she has on her jacket and her book bag is on her shoulder before i've even gotten out of the shower. but there are other times when she is so very, very slow. earlier this week, for example, it was time to walk out the door and she wasn't even close to being ready...because she had spent 20 minutes braiding a section of her hair and she hadn't even eaten yet. or there are times when she's in the middle of eating pancakes and she feels the need to run into the bathroom where i'm fixing my hair just to tell me something funny that a student in her class said 3 days earlier. it's the random, time-consuming tidbits like this that make me long for the day when she finally understands the concept of time.
and then there's ella. if i think back really hard, i can probably remember a time when mornings with ella were easy. or at least a time when they didn't make me want to pull out every hair on my head. but for the time being, those memories are lost, replaced only by kicking, crying, screaming fits of rage.
ella tends to have anger issues from time to time. she gets very upset over very minute details. i can't blame her; she comes by it honest. but at 6:30 in the morning, while i'm wrapped in a towel with wet hair and frantically running around trying to let the dog out to pee and put waffles in the toaster and brush my teeth, the last thing i want to do is deal with ella screaming about a pair of socks.
a few weeks ago, i made the mistake of answering ella's question, "what do i wear?" with the response "i don't care...whatever you want." minutes later she appeared in the doorway of my bedroom wearing a floor length satin dress that madelyn had worn when she was a flower girl a couple years earlier. i couldn't help but laugh. but that was the wrong reaction.
"dooooooon't laaaaaaaugh at meeeeeee!!!"
for the next 30 minutes, the ceiling in our bathroom felt like it was about to cave in, as ella lied on the floor in her bedroom kicking and wailing at the top of her lungs. and if she's not mad about an outfit, she's ticked off that she has to get out of bed because she's "sweepy"...or that she doesn't want to brush her teeth because the toothpaste is too "spicy"...or that madelyn looked at her wrong....or that she put her panties on backwards.
but it's not all my children's fault that i can never make it to work on time. or that i'm stressed out beyond belief before 8:00 every morning. i have to take some responsibility for my own actions. perhaps i hit the snooze button a few too many times in the morning. and maybe it wouldn't hurt to pick the girls' outfits out the night before. heck, it wouldn't hurt to pick out my own clothes the night before. just this morning, as i desperately attempted to button a pair of my skinnier jeans and then screamed "never get fat! you'll be miserable!" at my 7 year old as i flung the stupid things back in the closet, i wished that i had already decided upon what i was going to wear...preferably a pair of sweatpants. a little organization and preparation on my own part would probably cut the stress factor in half.
but i'm a self proclaimed procrastinator. i used to start on research papers the day before they were due. last sunday, i woke up early, but then mopped floors and cleaned house up until the last minute and ended up being late for church. but i've often found that not planning tends to work out pretty good for me, too. spontaneous, carefree nights of just hanging out at the house are always more fun than a pre-planned evening out. and the birth of my oldest child, madelyn--one of the two most precious gifts with which i've ever been blessed--wasn't exactly planned. but oh how much joy she has brought to my life.
so maybe i scream like a crazy lady every morning before work. and maybe my coworkers avoid me until my coffee has kicked in. maybe i go to work with mismatched socks, occasionally send my oldest to school with crazy hair, and let my youngest wear a flower girl dress to gran and papaw's house. all moms do that...right?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)