There are no rule books to being a good parent; parenting is a learn-as-you-go process at best. Advice is given from everyone when you find out you're having a little bundle of joy. My advice? Don't listen to at least half of it. Everyone is different and every child needs something different. The best advice usually comes from your own parents (especially when you beg them to tell you how they got you to sleep in your own bed when you were little). If I happen to be asked for advice the only thing I say is "don't do like me and screw things up by falling asleep in your kids bed EVER!" I warn that person that it only takes one time of accidentally closing your eyes when you're tucking Junior in for them to expect you to lay with them every night for the rest of your life (that was a bit dramatic, but it sure feels that way!). Okay, so that's my experience and I paid dearly for years when I happened to be a little sleepy one night and made that very mistake. After that I missed out on so many evenings doing things that I needed to do or just wanted to do because I was upstairs with my kid trying to "help" her go to sleep. And let me tell you...they don't fall into a coma right off so if your left knee pops just a teeny-tiny bit you'll have a little hand reach out to let you know it's not time for you to leave. Heck, I've been halfway out of my daughters door and heard "where are you going?"...the answer in my head was something like "I'm going to go gouge my eyes out with plastic spoons because I'm tired of staring at you to see if you're looking back at me!". What I actually said was something more like "to pee...be right back my cute little dove!" Children can smell fear and will exploit it...milk it for all its worth...and hurl its effects at you like a throwing star. My heart still speeds up at the memories of when I would attempt my escape! So, my little white lie about my bladder being full was to cover what I was actually going to go do (my shows were on and I was missing them!)...because I one hundred percent think that she purposely stayed awake even longer to punish me for my stupidity at thinking I could make it out of her room in less than twenty minutes. If I did happen to make it out of her room in a decent amount of time you may have been able to catch me doing a victory dance out in the hallway. The dance happened to look a lot like hop scotch though because I knew the exact two places in the floor outside of She-Who-Hears-Everything's room that still pop so loudly it can change my whole emotional state. I also got mad if anyone sneezed, coughed, flushed a toilet, didn't tip toe, blinked too loudly or moved on the couch so that the leather would do that errrk noise. I would especially get angry if my daughter was just starting to do that deep breathing thing that was the cue for me to be planning my getaway! I would be laying there praying that the tickle in my throat wouldn't screw me over and then I'd hear the kitchen chair downstairs move...what the?! If I can choke down a very badly needed cough why in the hell would you find it necessary to readjust the chairs?! Of course I'd come downstairs smiling because when I wasn't in the midst of my silent tantrum I knew it was silly of me to think that my husband should stop everything including not breathing for the thirty minutes to TWO hours I was upstairs. It would have been a very nice gesture on his part and I would have certainly done it for him...'cause I'm super sweet like that.
Another thing one learns along Parenthood Parkway somewhere around a year or two in is that your child may look like you and their other parent but in reality it's actually related to a parrot. That's right folks your little angel will start repeating every single thing you say without even receiving the little cracker treat afterwards! You just think you're being clever by cutting words in half or spelling them backwards but believe me - you'll slip up and they will be listening. My husband and I were in the kitchen one night preparing for dinner (him not me...I'm just a kitchen cheerleader...go steak!) and he told me a funny and slightly off-color joke. I said, thumbing the air towards our little cherub, "shhhh, don't say stuff like that, she might repeat it!" He said, "nah, she's absorbed in the TV." Well, with her back still turned towards us appearing to be completely into Dora (or whatever the annoying show was) she pokes her little pointer finger in the air and, doesn't repeat the joke, but exclaims "I REPEAT!" Holy-Freaky-Parrot!! Was that a warning? Yes, yes it was. We didn't heed the warning though...we tried but didn't succeed. Let me put it this way - the emergency power generator fixer dudes do not find it cute or funny at all when a three year old marches up to them because she is tired of waiting to watch TV and says "what the hells is going on here!" Well, at least she used it in the right context. <sigh>
But the worst time she repeated me will always remain burned in my brain. There were no dirty words involved at all, just a simple story that if retold without complete knowledge that I have a twin will bring on the weirdest stares anyone could ever receive in a lifetime. Said stares were thrown at me by no less than four daycare workers. I walked in one Spring evening just like every other day and received the funkiest of all receptions ever. I swear it was so awkward that I almost went to the nearest bathroom to make sure I didn't have fecal matter splattered on my shirt or that I forgot to wear pants that day! The director gingerly sidles up to me and describes to me that my daughter shared with everyone at reading-circle time that her cousin is really her brother and his mom and her own mom (that would be me...stay with me y'all) are their aunts. Okay, this wasn't supposed to sound like some scene from the movie Deliverance and there was a very simple explanation (although my tongue was failing me for a few moments because my face was en fuego!) that I finally got to rush through telling so the daycare peeps wouldn't think that everyday after school Skye helped me bury the moonshine and go hunting for our dinner. The explanation is this: identical twins have the exact same DNA. When a couple makes a baby that little thing gets half of their moms DNA and half of their dads as well. Therefor, my daughter and my sisters son each have their IT moms' identical DNA making up half their biological makeup. For the record, I did tell her that technically she and my nephew are only half brother and sister (you know, 'cause they have different dads). Looking back, it was a very poor decision to explain something I didn't learn until Biology 101 my freshman year of college to a four year old. Well...whoops! Plus, when I think too hard about what my bio-relationship is with my neph-son it hurts my head.
Don't worry, at some point your kids won't listen to you at all unless you're standing right in front of them yelling. And just to test my theory, give your child a list of things to do in a particular order when you're not standing less than twelve inches from their ear drums and see if they follow. Good luck with that!
No comments:
Post a Comment