Spinning up a Parental Confession

Do you ever have one of those days?  Of course you have, we all have.  But what I’m talking about is one of those days where a teeny little part of you wishes you could turn back the hands of time, or jump in a time machine and return to the days before you had kids.  When life seemed simpler and you didn’t have to have a battle of wills with anyone under the age of adult.

You know those days – where you have the urge to beat your head against a brick wall because whatever it is you’re trying to convey is not being absorbed by the other party.

The ‘other party’ being that of a 6 year old precocious child.

I’ve had those days.  One in particular that stands out was at the end of summer, the last grocery shopping day that Princess Nagger would be ‘forced’ to tag along with me before school started.  She has stated on many occasions that she does not like grocery shopping, most likely because she hears the word “No” way too often on those days when she spies something she really wants and I refuse to buy it for her.  I can be such a mean mom.

We were leaving Wal*Mart and heading over to BJ’s for the second half of the bi-monthly grocery shopping.  The promise of McDonald’s still dangled like a carrot as long as the Princess Nagger continued to be good during the second half of the shopping.  Even though she had started to show signs of a revolt whilst in Wal*Mart.  She wanted a Happy Meal now.  She wanted us to stop on the way, and wouldn’t accept the repeat answer of ‘after we’re done shopping’.  So she started to have a mini meltdown in the back seat.

A loud mini meltdown.

An ear-piercing loud mini meltdown.

I had to raise my voice to try to get her to listen to the words I was saying.

She got louder.

So I parked the vehicle in the parking lot of BJ’s and started to mimic her loud crying and shrieking.  Because I didn’t want to resort to yelling at her like I was on the precipice of doing.

When she screamed, I screamed.  When she shrieked, I shrieked, when she cried, I mimicked her cry.  Which made her start to giggle.  But I didn’t giggle, I just held my breath and thought to myself how much simpler life was before having to drag a protesting kid along to any sort of shopping.

Gone are the days of getting ‘quick errands’ done, gone are the days of spontaneously going out with friends or taking off for a random fun weekend.  Hello responsibility.  Hello to negotiations that involve Happy Meals or expensive toys or having to break a young fragile heart with the notorious word “No”.

And yet, as the mini meltdown transformed into angelic mode once again, and negotiations were successful keeping the fragile string that held the dangling carrot intact, the thought of not having this precocious 6 year old in my life was not a thought I would want to entertain.

In spite of the fact that the Princess Nagger can be quite the Drama Queen with the stomping of her feet (all the way up the stairs when told to do something she doesn’t want to do right at that moment like brush her teeth), to the folded arms, nose in the air and uttering the word “Humph!” when she doesn’t agree with you, and the overabundance of crocodile tears when she’s not getting her way, I would not wish my life to be without her for even a moment.

While having a child and raising a child can be a stressful proposition, at least you get rewarded for those stressful moments.  Be it from a bright smile, tons of hugs and kisses, or just from watching them learn and grow and turn into little people.  That makes all the melt downs and headaches and stress worth it.  It causes you to hang an ‘Out of Order’ sign on the Time Machine and enjoy staying right where you are.  In the moment.  Because those moments will be fleeting – you have to embrace them…the good, the bad and the ugly, because in the end they are so worth it.

This week’s Spin Cycle is brought to you in part by the adorable Jen from Sprite’s Keeper – head on over to her place and check out all the Parental Confessions this week.  They might bring a tear to your eye or a song to your heart… Or just make you giggle and not feel so alone.