Monday, July 18, 2011

Your Kid Annoys the Crap Out of Me. Heck, My Kid Annoys the Crap Out of Me.

Toddler Death Match- Vacuum Attachment Edition

Toddlers are weird little people. 

One minute, they are amazing you with some new piece of profound knowledge- a keen observation of the great big world around them.  However, before you can finish gushing with the pride that you feel at that moment, the toddler-person begins doing something incredibly inappropriate and/ or horrifically mortifying.  The older they get, the more exasperated you become, because it becomes increasingly clear that they know better and they are doing (insert weird/ bad thing here) on purpose.  I wouldn't go as far as to say that parenting a toddler is a love/ hate relationship, but there are definitely times that the overwhelming love takes a back seat to the feeling of, "If someone doesn't get over here to take this kid and give me a chardonnay break in the next 5 minutes I'm going to be rocking back in forth in a corner, probably permanently."  Or maybe it's just me.

Because my boyfriend is apparently missing the FBTA (Frazzled By Toddler Antics) gene.  Maybe it's only passed down to mommies on the X chromosome- I dunno. Maybe it's because he shares 50/50 custody with his ex, and approximately half his time is spent being an actual autonomous human being, rather than a toddler-wrangler.  Or maybe he's superhuman. 

All I know is that with two little toddler-people running amuck, it would be nice to have someone on my side to share in both the joys and the exasperation.  But noooooo.  When my admittedly mostly-brilliant kid insists that he reallypromiseshedoesn'thavetogopotty as Operation Code Brown commences in his pants, The Boyfriend gives me stern lectures and points me to yahoo! advice on potty training *rolling eyes*  Meanwhile, his kid is off humping things indiscriminately (although admittedly less now that he's about to turn 4).  Of course I am not allowed to point that out though, because anything his kid does wrong is simply "age appropriate," and "I'll see one day."

So here's my point- wait, I really didn't have one.  I guess my point is that sometimes, kids suck.  They all do.  Yours, mine.  Every. Single.  One.  Of.  Them.  Sometimes, we all have those moments when we feel like failures as parents.  Fortunately, those other moments when the kids are being sweet, adorable, brilliant, hilarious and loving make it all worthwhile.  Otherwise, no sane person would ever reproduce.

It's not just me, right?