“Ever told your child, ‘We’ll do it tomorrow,’ and in your haste, not see his sorrow?”
This quote really touched my heart. I also saw on a friend’s blog how she has loosened up as a parent (Thanks, Bronwyn!). She had a picture of her three children at her kitchen table with paints galore. She wrote about how she used to not even let her children have markers. Paint was for school where others could clean up the mess. I could so relate. I can’t tell you how much play-doh I’ve thrown away in my children’s lifetimes. I, too, almost never have paint around the house. They might make a mess. Post-it notes are a disaster waiting to happen in our home. I know as soon as I buy them that they will one day be stuck all over the walls of someone’s bedroom, my kitchen, or the den.
Have I loosened up? Sure. If I hadn’t, I’d lose my mind. Try making four children act as OCD as you are. Not possible. It’ll send you right over the edge. Quite literally! Everything doesn’t ALWAYS have to be in its place, although it does have to end up there on occasion. I’ve even given in to allowing my children to have one drawer or container that makes no sense whatsoever, full of all sorts of odds and ends. That’s huge for me!
I’m still bad about telling my children that we’ll do things “tomorrow” or “next time.” I want to get better. I’m trying to get better. They don’t always make it easy, though. For the past several days, I’ve been trying to watch a two-disc movie of “Little House on the Prairie.” When KeKe and I rented it last week, I was excited to watch it with her. I’ve enjoyed every time we’ve laid down together to see it. The problem is that she wants only the two of us to watch it together. It shouldn’t be a huge deal since everyone watched the whole thing on the way to Breckenridge and on the way back this weekend; however, reality is that there are six people living in this house, and they all like me (most of the time anyway).
Tonight, KeKe and I laid on the bed next to Rowland to watch the last segment of the movie. All was fine, and I was enjoying cuddling up with my princess. About 20 minutes into the movie, Jia came in and laid down on the bed next to me - on the opposite side of where KeKe was. Several minutes passed before KeKe realized that her sister had joined us. Jia hadn’t spoken; KeKe hadn’t had to move over or been affected in any way. Upon noticing her sister, KeKe immediately threw a silent fit, turning her back to me and saying, “It’s not fair!” I tried to calmly talk to her and make her see that nothing had really changed. Waste of air! She just kept throwing her silent fit, occasionally making a jerking movement with her body and saying, “It’s not fair!” Maybe I over-reacted, but it ticked me off. She was just being a spoiled brat. I told her to go to her room. She stomped around and made lots of noise getting there, still screaming and crying, “It’s not fair!”
Let me tell you what’s not fair! I wanted to watch the movie with her, to cuddle up together and enjoy the ending. I was enjoying our special time. I had made a point for several days not to say that we’d wait until tomorrow or next week or some indefinite time to watch the movie. What’s not fair is that my night was ruined. Maybe I know now how my children feel when I put them off and tell them to wait. Maybe I understand their sorrow a little better. Bottom line, it wasn’t fair!
