Recycling of a Random Parental Confession Because I Can… RTT Rebel & Coffee Chat

Because today’s Coffee Chat is random – a random confession, that is – I’m combining Random Tuesday Thoughts Rebel and Coffee Chat as one entity, because I can. And because I don’t want to overload your brain. Are you with me?

It’s time once again for Rory Bore’s Tuesday Chat!

This week’s prompt or question is:

Random Confession.  It’s good for the soul!

I was trying to wrack my brains on a valid confession, but since I pretty much lay it all out there for you already, I was coming up empty. So I decided to recycle a confession post from way back when – also because I can. And because it’s worth repeating. At least I think so.

Without further ado, here’s my (Random) Parental Confession originally published on November 5, 2009 (edited and updated for prosperity):

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 Walmart and heading over to BJ’s for the second half of the semi-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 Walmart. 

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.

That’s a wrap for this week – you know the drill, link up and join in the fun, everyone is welcome, random or not. And that means even if you don’t have a specific Random Tuesday Thoughts Rebel post posted, you can still link up, I’m not picky. You don’t even have to add the badge, just link up so I can come harass you on your blog. I promise to play nice.

.

Link up your Random (or not) here:

I’ve also decided to adopt Xmas Dolly’s idea of adding an additional linky just to encourage more followers where you need it most. We can all use more followers, right? So feel free to link up any post on the first linky, and a follower linky on the second one. Let’s see if we can party like rock stars!

Link up where you need to gain more followers here:

Keeping the random alive (barely) – feel free to snag a badge and play along – one for my wino friends:

<div align="center"><a href="http://stacyuncorked.com" title="Stacy Uncorked" target="_blank"><img src="http://stacysrandomthoughts.com/Files/randomtuesday.jpg" alt="Stacy Uncorked" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

And one for my non-wino friends:

<div align="center"><a href="http://stacyuncorked.com" title="Stacy Uncorked" target="_blank"><img src="http://stacysrandomthoughts.com/Files/randomtuesday2.jpg" alt="Stacy Uncorked" style="border:none;" /></a></div>