Do I hear someone peeing in the dining room?!
My kids were pretending to pee on each other today. Thank God (I mean it) they were just pretending! This thankfulness is running neck and neck with my thankfulness that this was happening in my dining room and not in the middle of a department store.
Our kids do strange and upsetting things. This particular weirdness would be compounded if my kids were say 15 and 18 years old instead of 3 and 6. Those are problems I will deal with if they come. But it reminded me that life is never predictable with kids around.
Will you remember this the next time you see a mother at the end of her rope in the middle of the grocery store? (Everyone probably just needs a nap.) Can you keep this in mind the next time you see a 4-year-old girl wearing her tutu with snowboots and Halloween t-shirt in the middle of July? (She won that battle.) Or maybe give a knowing smile when you witness a temper tantrum at the restaurant because the 2-year-old boy got mustard on his cheeseburger? (He liked mustard yesterday.)
Not one of us wants to be that mom, but we all are. Sometimes we’re lucky enough to have it happen behind closed doors, but sooner or later those little people outsmart us. They catch us at our weakest with the eyes of the world watching.
As crazy as things get, we all know this is just part of the journey. Mom to mom, I’ve been there. If you haven’t been a mom or it’s been a long time since you’ve had children at home, please don’t judge.This is the hardest job in the world!
And so I ask myself, “What if they actually had peed in the dining room?” Even if they sprayed my favorite curtains and aimed for my grandmother’s china, I wouldn’t love them any less. I probably would have come close to an actual mental crisis, but I wouldn’t love them any less!
So whether it’s in the privacy of our homes or out for all to see, embrace the lack of predictability. Cherish the weird memories you’ll blog about. And really, chances are, your kids will pee in the bathroom like they should!
What “strange and upsetting things” do your kids sometimes do?
Guest blogger Jenna moved from Pennsylvania to Colorado 10 years ago, right after marrying her favorite man in the world, Mark. Her two other favorite people are her daughter Zoe, age 6, and son Elijah, age 3. Love, peace, joy, and kindness are the foundations for her life.
Oh Jenna, I can so relate! I’ve given in on more battles than I ever thought I would, and the terrible two’s have just begun for us!
My daughter is the one everyone sees at the supermarket dressed inappropriately for the weather, in shirts two sizes too small and crazy bed hair that she won’t let me near with a comb!
http://www.mamabirdsblog.com
It’s posts like this that give me faith that we really are in it together. Sure, my kids may not pretend to pee in the dining room but we definitely have our fair of *those* moments!
I like to say to moms clearly having a bad day, “it was my turn yesterday” or “it’ll be my turn to have the tantrums tomorrow”.
Yesterday, there was much wailing because she didn’t get to wear all pink. Such is life!
I really needed to read this post. It would be good for me (and my children) to relax a little and make more of the stuff — like bodily fluids in the living room — small stuff.
Not sure I can do it, though!
Lori, YOU CAN DO IT! Laughter is good, pulling your hair out… not so much.
And seriously, why is it one extreme or the other with the clothes?!? They either look absolutely ridiculous or are obsessed like a teenage girl!
We MUST remember these events for when their own children are driving them to the edge of sanity.
Thanks all for your comments!
Oh, the stories I could tell. But I won’t.