I have been doing a lot of soul searching as of late… hence the absence of any writing. I’ve been considering writing a book. Yes, a book. But this would entail me having some kind of creative drive, which lately I don’t seem to possess. My daughter, who will be four in September is on track to completing her first total mommy take down. And I just can’t let her do it… just yet. For the past five days she has done her best to use all of the foul language she knows, which consists of ”God dangit,” ”Hell,” and ”Shut your mouth,” all things that she knows will set me into mommy orbit. She has also given into tantrums that have been epic in proportion. The odd thing is that she would never do this in front of anyone but me, which has its positives. Right?
Today I reached a low. Not an all-time low, because I really didn’t give a shit what anyone thought of me, but the effort was exhausting. While shopping for school supplies at Target, my daughter asked for a toy. I told her no and she abruptly threw her flip flops into the children’s clothing section. This diversion allowed her to run at full speed through the shopping complex while screaming “I don’t love you!” at the top of her lungs. As I write this I am smiling. I suddenly find this so damn funny. I quickly took Gunnar out of the cart, and ran after her… as fast as I could with a 25lb toddler in my arms. When I got to her, an elderly woman decked out in her fuschia-flowered blouse scowled at both my child and myself with disgust. Clearly my daughter was the product of poor parenting. Sigh. I grabbed my possessed daughter and escorted her to where her shoes had been tossed. We left the store with nothing. Nothing. Wait, I left with a headache. She left with nothing.
When we reached the house, and I had unlatched her seatbelt, she climbed down from her seat and ran down the sidewalk in the scorching Alabama sunshine. She yelled, “I am NEVER coming back!” Gunnar and I walked slowly down the street to where she was again removing the flip flops to drop them into the street. Once she had done so, she immediately began to cry that her feet were too hot and that she was going to burn up! Sigh.
After the longest time-out in Weisser history I decided that I too needed one. I really just craved a moment to myself. I’m not sure what I’d do in that time. Most likely I’d laugh uncontrollably until I’d cry, but I could just take a nap… sleep it all away. I understand that this is all developmental and that “it’ll pass,” but it really sucks. The only thing I do know… is that I have become that mother that loses it in public… not enough to call social services over, but enough to go, “Oh my God… is she okay?” and that flip flops are forever banned from outings.
