Cause Stress is for Kids

This past Friday, on the way home from school, my kids and I went grocery shopping and picked up Chinese food for dinner. (We live in Wesley Chapel, so the trip took two and a half hours.) As we were about to eat, I got a phone call. Left my wallet in the restaurant along with our chopsticks.

Drove back to retrieve the overused debit cards, worn pictures and three ignored dollar bills all encased in an old, red wallet I snagged on Canal Street five years ago for five bucks. Another forty-five minutes in traffic. My meltdown occurred somewhere around the twenty-seven minute mark.

My week always starts off strong, but by Friday I’m a mess. Partly because I miss my husband. Partly because my children are driving me insane.

I unloaded on the phone with my own mom about the toll motherhood can take on an otherwise sound thirty-six year old woman. Mine are lovely kids: warm, sensitive, smart and so very sweet. They are also strong-willed, opinionated, and argumentative. This typical conversation would try the patience of a saint:

“Mommy, would you get my folder out of my backpack?”
“I can’t sweetie; I have to pay attention to traffic.”
“What traffic? There’s no one in front of you.”
“Well, all around me -”
“I don’t see any traffic. Please?”

Then my youngest joins in.

“Stop arguing with Mommy. I can’t hear this song.”
“You’re not the boss of me.”
“Boys…”
“I just want to see my backpack for a second.”
“And I just want to hear my favorite song. You’re not being nice!”
“You’re hurting my feelings!”
“Keep your hands to yourselves, boys!”
“I can’t hear my song!”

Have I mentioned I’m not a saint? Not by a long shot?

Mom wondered aloud why my children are testing me on a daily basis. Why they’ve come to sigh and say, “Whatever.” Why my angels have turned into creatures who want to know consequences before they’ll abide by our rules. There have been times when I’ve caught myself almost saying, “Now I’m upset. Are you happy?” A refrain I heard many times myself as a child.

Then it occurred to me.

For better or worse, these boys have a mother who gets them. I don’t have to ask why and know better than to ask, “Are you happy now?” They’re not happy when others get frustrated. They feel compelled to protest, compelled to argue. They can’t help themselves. What they want, more than anything, is to be heard. To be understood.

“I’m just sad for them sometimes,” I concluded. “Cause life ain’t easy with such a complicated personality.”

“It’s frustrating, honey,” she said. “But keep in mind those boys have a lot of their father in them.”

Here it comes.

“And they’re not nearly as bad as you were.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“As a four year old, you stood in an icy shower, up north where it’s cold, and folded your arms to show such a punishment didn’t bother you. At five, you’d scream until every blood vessel broke and sometimes blood would come out of your eyes. Consequences didn’t work because you’d take them, no matter how bad, just to show you couldn’t be forced to do anything. We brought you to that social worker and after ten minutes, she was convinced you were an angel and we were the ones with the problem. You said, ‘It’s all in the way you spin it.’ You were in fifth grade, Catherine.”

“Okay, enough. You’re blaming the victim.”

Can’t wait to see what this week brings.