Marley had a follow up appointment with her Pediatrician the other day. While in the office, she suggested doing her physical in a few months. She also told me she should be starting puberty and getting breasts soon.
Da FUCK?! Um, Doc, she’s 9. NINE. I’m not prepared for ANY of that. I can’t even handle her 16-year-old mood swings now. You want to throw a whole fury of hormones into our already jacked up mix? No thank you. Of course, I know I can’t prevent it from happening.
I may need to up my wine to child ratio a bit to cope.
My daughter is the sweetest child you will ever meet. Seriously. I’m not saying that because I’m biased, she really is THAT good. Sometimes I even have a hard time relating to her kind, gentle, and well-mannered disposition. She’s an excellent student, smart, sarcastic. She’s always been super easy. Except for the fact that she is hopelessly disorganized and slow as fucking molasses. Frozen fucking molasses. I should count my blessings that these are her only real annoyances. Yet, these minor infractions bring me to a level of stress that I usually only reach while interacting with my son’s father.
She has a list of about 5 things she needs to do every morning before we leave; you know, the essentials. Brush her hair/teeth, get dressed, put shoes and socks on, etc. The normal every day shit. Do you know how much of that gets done on a regular basis without me shooting flames from my mouth and smoke from every other crevice? Not even half!!
I’ve had countless conversations with her regarding this and its literally like talking to a brick fucking wall. Only this wall looks at me like I’m not even speaking English. Like she needs a real time fucking translator.
Earlier this week, I woke her up and told her to shower and get ready. She showered, came down stairs dressed and ready, packed her bag, and then went to put whatever shoes on she hadn’t yet lost this week. I look over at her and immediately lose my shit. She had showered, but didn’t even bother to take her hair out of the previous days’ pony tail to do so. Now, she has VERY curly hair. But it’s not unmanageable. She’s just lazy.
Today I asked the kids to clean their room, so we could go to the store. They worked on it for about two hours. Yes, you read that right: two hours. I asked how long until they would be done. I was told 20 minutes. They “finish”, and ran-down stairs and outside to get their crap from the week out of my car so they have a place to sit.
Of course, I went into their rooms. SHIT everywhere. Like, what the hell were they doing in there to have accomplished NOTHING?!! Unfortunately for them, and much to my dismay ( hahahah, okay not so much) I was forced to leave them behind and make the trip to Wally World alone.
Now, I had given Marley fair warning that the first thing that would happen if she kept up her behavior was a haircut. If you have little hair to manage, you save time in the morning. Until this point, her hair was trying to form its own dreads. When I came home from my shopping trip, I had new shears in hand. And, she got 6 inches cut off. Of course, she cried. I explained that I wasn’t punishing her, I was simply helping her improve her time management. Some people may view this as harsh. To each their own. I remember having my hair completely chopped off to make it manageable as a grown adult woman against my wishes. It improved my morning routine.
I just never imagined that I would need to repeat myself over and over and over as a parent. Where was that chapter in the “What to Expect” series?
I believe children should listen the FIRST time. We’re working on it, and it’s a slow process, and thank God I have Derek, or I’d lose even more of my fucking mind. I may have gone an alternate route if I didn’t finally have some forceful back up: to include multiple booms boxes scattered throughout the house with CDs on repeat of the 5 most common phrases I use everyday. Stop! Put that where it belongs! That’s NOT yours! WHAT are you doing?! And…Seriously?!
Okay, I might still do that someday.
Also, my children’s frequent use of the word “mommy” as of late makes me want to pull my hair out. From the time they wake up, to the time they finally pass out at night, it’s pretty much non-stop. And over the stupidest shit.
“Mommy?”
Yes?
“when are you going to wake up?”
“Mommy?”
Yes?
“Um, Um, Um, Um,”
Spit it out.
“ Um, what are you doing?”
Going to the bathroom. Clearly.
It was soooo bad today, I felt myself about to wig out on them, so instead I countered them with a new rule. They had reached their limit of calling my name, and would no longer be acknowledge unless they addressed me as “Her Majesty” first.
At first, they thought I was joking. Then they started addressing me by my new name.
You see, as annoying and frustrating as they are, I do love my children. Sometimes, I need to bring myself down before reacting, and I try to use humor or something ridiculous to counter my instinct to run outside and drive away.
As my night is winding down, and we still have showers to take, clothes to fold and put away, and a plethora of other things that probably won’t get done, I’m glad I have my little assholes around.
Also, in case you were wondering, Marley now LOVES her new haircut ( 2.7 second rebound rate), and we even put a little purple in it. She can’t wait to show her friends her “awesome new hair” tomorrow.
Win, win.
Boob Pockets 
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