December 12, 2008

Parenting Drama

My friend AJ's recent post on her blog inspired me to tell a few of my day to day stories of....MOM ON THE RANT.

I love my boys to pieces, but more often than not these days, they hear me say any one (or more) of the following:

You guys are driving me nuts!
Mom's going crazy!
Lord, have mercy.
What the...? ROSS!!!!

Ross. He's my pistol. Red headed, strong willed, and two and a half. You do the math.

This morning, Kris left for work early so I was responsible for finishing breakfast and getting all four of us out the door. I was aiming for an 8am departure and doing pretty well: Grant had brushed his teeth, blown his nose, put on his shoes, and was zipping his coat. I had Hope buckled into her carseat, hood up, blanket tucked from her feet to her chin, and nuk in mouth. My bags were packed, I started the car, and had my own coat on. Ross had been playing "hide and peek" by opening and closing the bathroom door about a million times, but whatever. I opened the door with his coat in hand and what do I smell? The little stinker crapped in his pull up! Damn!

So--I quickly walked Grant across the street to walk to school so he wouldn't be late, then raced back into the house to change Ross. Coat off, leave baby in carseat on table, and get Ross upstairs to a bathroom with wipes. He was crying because he wanted to walk Grant to the neighbors, too. when I tried to explain that we needed to change his pants, he became ticked and screamed...and screamed....and screamed. This is what he does when he's mad and tantruming. I practically had to wrestle the 36 pound bruiser to the floor to get the poopy pull up off and clean him up. "Ross, stop screaming. It hurts mommy's ears." SCREAM "Ross! Stop it! Be quiet!" SCREAM "Put your feet in the pull up!" And on and on. We finally made it downstairs and after more resisting--the kid is obstinate--I got his coat on, buckled him into the van, put Hope in the van (poor Hope...she waited a long time this morning), and got us out the driveway--at 8:20.

OH MY GOSH. And that was just the morning. Pick up at the end of the day involved an even bigger tantrum because he wanted to change his wet pull up and I took his shoe off for him to start the process. "NO! I was doing that, Mommy!" SCREAM, SCREAM, SCREAM! Right there in the middle of Lommen Hall, Ross fell to the grimy hallway floor for an all-out tantrum.

I have to give credit to Grant--he remained calm the entire time, which helped me hang on to a few threads of sanity.

2 comments:

TBRKO said...

Okay this totally put a smile on my face! Not the reaction you were looking for I am sure, but seriously, if we don't laugh we do crazy right? I think that we all have or have had these kinds of mornings.
I can't wait until Thad leaves town the end of January for a 'conference' that will involved a lot of partying on his part while I single parent it with work, etc. I am sure I will have a few hundred horror stories too.
And, for those of you who don't know Ross, he is absolutely hilarious!

ABCDH said...

That was beautiful!!
Thanks for sharing!