Not the Steve Martin classic (which BTW is one of my all time favorite movies) or the Robert Townsend TV show (where I got one of my girls names from)…the Real life…real deal. We watch all these superparents on TV and in movies and wonder how the hell do they do that…how do they deal with that. And then snap…movie is over and back to reality. When raising children, especially on your own, sometimes you just have those “rip out your hair” moments. I had two of these moments in a 3 day time frame.
Let’s start with Saturday…
Since it was to hot to function outside we (the girls and myself) got up pretty early and headed out, ran a few errands and came home. After lunch I started to clean the house so Sunday could be relaxing, no cleaning to do…so while the girls are eating their lunch, I start cleaning the kitchen and putting things away. The girls are done inhaling their lunch…(both girls names start with Z…for purposes of my blog the oldest will be Z and the younger will be z) and go into the playroom to watch some tv. Fine with me since I get way more done while they are busy. So an hour into my cleaning, with the music blasting in the living room, I am done with the kitchen and both bathrooms. I go to the playroom and tell Z to start cleaning up their playroom and z to help…”okay mommy” is the response I get from both of them. After a while I go check on them to see what progress they have made and nothing…they are sitting in front of the TV…I tell Z to turn the TV off because she needs to clean, not watch tv…when you are done you can turn the TV back on. Z starts jumping up and down, having a terrible two’s tantrum(TTT)…mind you she is about to be 7 in 2 weeks. So I told her to go into her bedroom (where there is strategically no TV) and sit there until she was ready to clean up…the screaming continued…she sounded like she just got hurt. Luckily my neighbors are not nosy because if they were I am pretty sure the cops would have been at my damn door. So needless to say she stayed in that room, screaming for hours, until dinner and then she went to bed…all because she did not want to clean up her playroom.
On to Monday…
I tell Z to get her work done…not really homework, she goes to an enrichment program and has work to do for that, nothing excessive just 3 worksheets a day. Again with the TTT…ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS RIGHT NOW. After she sat in her room again screaming for about an hour she comes out and says … “Can I just do my work now?” What the hell was the screaming for?
I SWEAR kids need to come with instruction manuals…the hospitals want to give you baby bags, coupons and stuff… what they really need is a damn How To Manual….how to not throw your own TTT, how to not get the belt out, how to not drink a whole bottle or two of wine in one hour, how to not sit and cry because you think you have done something wrong, how to not let these damn kids get so far under your skin you have a meltdown…how to breathe…how to not call their father and curse him out for getting on with his life and not helping…
The list can go on and on and on and on…you get the gist.
What are some of the things you do to not rip your hair out?
my0wneyes 