Thursday, December 04, 2008

It's Thursday. What Day Is It? I don't know. (!!!)

This afternoon my four year-old Peanut was sitting in the next room drawing a picture for her daddy and singing "I'm a teeenaaaaager in love." She gets it from Connie Stevens singing "Why Must I Be A Teenager In Love" on The Muppet Show, but she hasn't seen that in a long while, so the tune was coming out rather differently. Better, I think.

She really is unbearably cute sometimes.


Earlier today, I was beyond angry with her, over something really, really dumb: She knows the days of the week. She knows which of the days are her preschool days. This morning I asked her, what day is it? Dunno, she said. I told her: it's Thursday. What days do you have school? Dunno, she said. I reminded her: Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

So, do you have preschool today?

Dunno.

What day is today?

Dunno.

I tell her, again.

What days do you have preschool?

Monday, Tuesday...

Wait, do you remember what we just said?

Dunno...

Repeat, repeat, repeat, and despite an inner voice that said let it go, leave her alone, for whatever reason she can't handle this simple thing right now, I just could not. A louder voice said what the FUCK, she KNOWS this, and even if she didn't, I just TOLD HER, and she needs to PAY ATTENTION! And I got really angry. I don't know why this simple, inconsequential thing just set me off. I tell her something, and then two seconds later she's incapable of repeating it back to me? I am probably not getting across how infuriating it was in the moment, but even if I could get it across, there is no reason it should make sense. There's no getting around that my feelings were out of proportion to this stupid interaction we were having.

When I got back from bringing Bean to the bus, Peanut was happily reciting the days of the week with her Daddy, and I apologized for being too mad at her, and we forgot about it. That is, she forgot about it. I'm blogging about it. In any case, all is well.

I take small consolation from the fact that I'm still a better mommy than the one I saw dragging her little girl into the liquor store tonight (wine is 20% off on the first Thursday of the month, dontcha know) so she could get a bottle of vodka. It was 8:30; both of them were in pajamas. I guess there's fucking up, and Fucking Up.

2 comments:

  1. Or how about the father in FL who had his 9yr old son drive him to the liquor store on a beer run?

    Can't forget about him.

    It's easy to get frustrated with little ones. I'm not a mom, but I just about raised my little brother from the time I was 13 years old. Even when you know it's not a big deal, the frustration can become unbearable.

    It happens.

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  2. We all have those "WTF is wrong with this kid???" irrationally angry mom moments. You didn't do anything crazy and you apologized later. You handled it right and are a great mom.

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