Confession #9: Weinheimer

Arden flipped on her whining switch and I think I'm about to blow my fuse.

I have never been a particularly patient person. It's not a prerequisite for living in NYC. In fact, it's  frowned upon. When I first moved here from Oberlin, OH I got a job at the Barnes & Noble at Lincoln Center. I'll never forget how my supervisor at the Info Desk told me to "stop wasting time with all the hello how are you stuff". You may have heard about us New Yorkers and it's all completely true. We want it fast. We don't wanna wait. We definitely don't wanna hear how you, your kids or your mom are doing if for some reason we are waiting. 

The patience involved in caring for your own child is a bit different. She's my gorgeous, funny, sweet baby girl who is making me totally lose my mind! She's pushing and pushing and pushing me!  I'm pretty sure my parents are smiling in that payback-is-a-little-bit-sweet kinda way.

I don't know what happened. It seems like we got back from Denver and the child went bazonkers. "Mama Mama Mama Mama Mama Mama, no, no, no, no, no, wa wa, wa wa, wa wa, wa wa et al.”

Here is a sample "conversation" from this morning:

Arden: (with tone becoming increasingly frenzied with each repetition) "peach, peach, peach, peach, peach..."

Momma: (One eye open, half dressed and have to pee because it's 6:01am and we literally just got out of bed, tone calm and singsongy) "Arden, I hear you. I'll get you peach in one minute. Mommy has to pee."

Arden: (no tone only whining) "Ahahahahnpeachypeachyahahaahahmommamommahahahaha!)

Momma: (praying to God almighty please give me the strength to make it through the next 14 hours of this!) -- I try to ignore the whining.

Arden: (It's on. Now she's trying to climb onto my lap while I'm peeing, knocks the toilet paper out of my hand and is still whining) "Up, up, up, up..."

Time: still 6:01am

I feel like I enlisted. She barks orders at me and its comply or suffer the consequences. The child knows how to say please. She knows I want her to say it. She knows I wait for her or make her say it each time she demands something. But regardless of the seemingly thousands of times we have gone through this, she does not say please on her own without prompting. I believe Bill Cosby refers to this as brain damage.

So, basically, I'm in trouble.

I love this brain damaged child and I do not want to scream at her. This none-too-patient NYC Momma is relying heavily on the serenity prayer, our dog Penny and songs from the Little Mermaid.

I was commiserating with a dear friend of mine (mother to 4 boys) about my situation. She said that the whining tends to stop some time around age 4. "God grant me the serenity..."