January 4, 2006
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Nuts, I forgot something. I don’t actually like kids all that much. I knew that at one point, when I was deep in my maiden aunthood status, but then I went cross country with a man and I decided we needed to reproduce.
Today when my husband got home, I asked him to do something for me. ” What?” he asked, in a tone both weary and wary. “Remind me not to have kids in my next life,” I said. “Oh, no worries about that,” he replied.
Bug is in the midst of a development phase I’ve decided to call the Satanic Sixes. If you remember that story The Ransom of Red Chief, she is much like that boy. Horribly spoiled to the point of having utterly unrealistic expectations. That, combined with Bean’s quite normal Terrible Two phase (not really terrible, just very tiring), and the fact that Bug has an honorary sister, Katherine, who is over here just about every other day, it’s crazy making. I’m not even getting mad anymore, I’m just confused. I think Bug has some problems that go deeper than I thought. Or maybe it is just the dynamic with the friend, a poor diet and a lack of sleep.
DH has put her in her room twice in the last 3 days. Two days ago, it was because I just could not take her snarling rudeness and completely imperious demands anymore. At times anything I said was not met with whining, but wriggling, stamping howler monkey like behavior. She flatly refused to do any such thing as go to her room, so when her father led her up by the hand and she realized he was serious, she started screaming, “I didn’t do anything wrong, I didn’t do anything wrong!” Yeah, and bears don’t shit in the woods, either. She ended up throwing the slats of her doll bed at the bedroom door, causing a terrible racket. Then after a period of quiet, she opened the door, asked to go to the bathroom. We told her she could come back down if she was ready. She was, and she was fine after that.
Today she had to go back to her room more just because she got into a pissing contest with her father and lost. I decided to let her fight her own battles and let her see where it got her, so I said nothing. DH cautioned Bug that if she couldn’t control her attitude any better, she would have to go to her room. After some arguing back and forth, she asserted that no one could make her do anything, so he showed her that he could. Of course, she could have come right back out again, what is what she always used to do, but she didn’t. So she’s already bowing down to authoritarianism some. Whew!
While she was up in her room, I discovered that Bean really HAD broken some Christmas ornaments. Of course, why not. The front parlor is nothing but a playroom. I am undecorating the tree and trying to get the room cleaned up, but even with all the other places to play here, all the children wants to play in that room. They want to take all the cushions off that couch and build forts, even though that is the nice couch. We have four couches in this house, btw. We just keep adding them and not getting rid of any. Two are in the basement, were all the toys and the big tv are. But the tiny front sitting room, that holds the allure.
So a bunch of broken Christmas ornaments which I discovered while I was in the middle of vacuuming and doing other chores. Bean’s hand was bleeding and she asked for a napkin first, then a paper towel when I told her we had no napkins. I told her I thought she should have a Band-Aid, and she said she wanted a Blues Clues Band-Aid. The girl knows a lot of nouns.
Tonight she picked a dime up off the floor and showed the money to her father proudly. He told her it was a dime. She went around saying, “It a dime, it not a penny.” She punctuates her conversation with numerous meows, especially liking them as a form of greeting. Pretty endearing, although I think I liked her growling phase even better. Nothing cuter then when she would hold a toy cow up to you and show you how it growled.
Bean came down from her room into the kitchen where I was rolling out bread dough, and she wanted to have some dough to play with. I broke off a hunk and she added more flour and water and pretended to cook, making quite a mess. I helped her get cleaned up, and then she asked to help me make my thing, so I let her roll out the other half of my bread dough. I was using it to make runzas and not actual bread. She started talking in that affected mannerism she has when she wants to show she is very serious. At least I think so, i’ve never figured out why she gets this higher pitched, clipped way of speaking, like she’s telling a fairytale. But I think it’s cute as hell, actually.
So both children were pleasant to be around in the evening, although DH says Bug’s constant Mommy, Mommy, Mommy would drive him up a wall. I can deal with her enthusiasm in wanting to ask or tell me things as it is so much nicer than the attitude I often get. She still scares me sometimes, though, when she forgets what she said, forgets what question she has just asked even as we are answering it, or insists I said things I never said. I think I’ll watch it a little while longer and see how things pan out.
I guess I like kids well enough.
