A Letter to My 4 Year That I'll Probably Never Let you See

Honey, I love you but holy crap. If I had a white flag to raise I'd be raising it. A nice glass of prosecco raised to my lips might have to do. 

Relentless from sun up "but momma the sun's out get up" to sun down "but momma it's still morning".

If I had a nickel for every "but momma". 

I know you are developmentally needing to differentiate yourself from us by making choices and being contradictory but need you be such an overachiever?

Just when I think I've found a magic bullet, you pull out the vest.  Yesterday I pretended instead of disciplining.  I was your teacher, your patient with eyepoopitous (that's right, no replacements found for that one auto-correct), your prince charming you to say pleases, we got through bedtime as pirates with pixy dust. I thought I'd figured it out. If I'd just play you'd cooperate. 

But you're like a tiny Darwin adapting each day to make my life difficult.

Today it doesn't matter if I play it, sing it, ask it 1 or 4 times, you don't wanna do it. And also you are probably going to wipe messy blueberry hands on the wall and hit your brother with the new purse I now regret buying you just for emphasis. 

If it takes me .00001 of a second to start backing out of the driveway you are all "Mommie let's GO already!!!!

As soon as I get on the phone, the real craziness awakens. "I'm your gummie bear. I'm your gummie bear. Gummie gummie gummie gummie bear bear oh yea" In a nails on a chalk board annoying insanely volumed voice. You sing over and over while running over the dog on your scuttle bug. 

I make the mistake of telling you something. Then, you proceed to ask me one hundred million times when that thing is going to happen. 

You stuck my shoelace in your butt...hole. And pretended it was your lion tail. To your credit, it stayed in there so it really worked well.

I am tired of being Prince Phillip and Ursula. 

I am tired of being bossed around. You are not the boss of me.

At a parent panel, a mother of four grown boys solemnly summed it up. She said the majority of what you do will be discipline. Teaching. Leading them to understand what the boundaries are in life. 

Good thing dear husband got our yard fenced in. I think my work is done here. 

Confession #18: There's a New Pope So I'd Better Get My Act in Gear!

Just kidding. I'm not Catholic.

Getting my act in gear is still a very good idea.

I'll start by confessing to absolutely NOT having the time to write this post.

Its currently 9:01pm just-had-an-hour-stolen-from-us-on-Sunday time. Just got the kids in bed. House is totally trashed. A crazy mess. I probably need to check my work email. I should try to work out. I definitely need to fold my laundry Everest.

I just may finish that bottle of wine and eat some chocolate instead.

I need to call my friends and bathe the dog.

I'd like to stop farting from all those dang lentils I've been eating. Yikes.

I've been working very hard on not yelling at Arden since she's 3 1/2 and I have a graduate degree so I should probably have the patience, understanding and creativity to handle her behavior without resorting to "WHAT I SAY GOES!"

I confess it is one of the more difficult things I've had to do. Turns out it's so easy to just get mad.

Hubbie saw Zero Dark Thirty so we were talking about torture. It's so easy to use one's supposed power over others but it turns out sometimes just playing with them and giving them snacks works even better.