A Secret Fact About Kids: They Can Be Annoying
And It’s OK
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My son is a toddler and he has no idea how significant this change is to his life. It’s like he woke up miserable one day and now he’s stuck in that gear. I am a loving and mostly patient mom, but I wonder if I’m going to be able to handle another year or three of this?
Take shoes, for example. He insists on wearing these very cute rubber rain boots all the time. He looks adorable in them, but they’re not good shoes to wear when running and playing on dry ground. He has no idea how to use his feet when they’re in those shoes, so he falls all over the place. In the appropriate wet weather, he stomps in puddles with such vigor, the boots fill with gross frigid street puddle water. But there’s no way to explain or reason with him that the boots totally suck and I keep forgetting to toss or hide them, and I have this weird mental block about holding onto them just in case, and so this battle rages on.
Another example; he’s decided vegetables are his mortal enemy, and basically will now only eat bread in some form. Pretzels, bread, pizza, crackers, croutons and pasta are all he will accept as a meal. I’m afraid he’s going to get scurvy. But no amount of trickery works on this little Einstein. He knows my schemes and sees right through them all. Airplane-ing the veggies in? Nope. Sampling it myself with a hearty “Mmmm!” to show him how he is missing out on such delicious peas? Nada. Mixing it in with the potato or meat course? “What am I, stupid?”, his face appears to say. Adding butter, tahini, ketchup? “Try again, lady.”
I am afraid I’m going to raise a pasty carb-human. But there’s nothing I can do about it besides maybe starve him until he’s so hungry, peas become a coveted treat.
He has a pink doll stroller that he loves to push all over the place with with or without a doll in it, which is pretty damn cute, but the issue with that is, he gets crazy about this stroller. When it’s time to stop playing with it because say for example, we have arrived at our destination such as school, he throws a volcanic eruption level fit complete with screaming, arm waving, doing that thing where his body fluctuates from limp to stiff at precisely the most awkward interactive moments, and almost no amount of soothing or distraction will calm his tantrum. He’s not like that with other toys. It’s just this one godforsaken stroller.
There are many little things like that that he does which I find wholly annoying, and I’m surprised to be admitting this, because I remember when he was a few weeks or months old and a friend of mine messaged me to say congrats and she mentioned that kids are wonderful and beautiful and annoying and I was so dumbfounded by her admission. I was like, “How could this tiny, precious, sleeping, helpless ball of love and soft ever be annoying?!?”
But I too learned that there are some secrets to motherhood that unfold slowly over time and are eventually revealed. And it hurts. I don’t want to be annoyed by my child. I want to be patient and loving and understanding and warm and kind and happy and good all the time. But I can’t be, because that would be crazy and possibly even more damaging to him then if I were to lose my own temper now and then so he can learn about boundaries and see that every human has a breaking point and to try to understand the fine and nuanced elements of negotiation and cooperation and communication.
So, I try to exercise a softness when he goes for the frickin’ horrid, work-making rubber boots. I take it as an opportunity to practice a kind of maternal meditation when he insists that not one bite of broccoli will enter or exit his colon today. I allow myself to accept that I am annoyed when he grabs the stroller and begins to squeak and holler for me to let him run all over the park with it, and then I encourage myself to let it go. Sometimes my “incredible mothering ability” even actually works and I do find some peace and pause so he can just be a kid and I can just tolerate that for a few moments.
And then I get annoyed, and then it starts all over again, all day, every day, ad nauseum.
And I wonder at what age will his tantrums and demands let up? How old will he be when I can begin to reason with him and it will start to sink in? But then I remember that this beautiful, tender, perfect age won’t last forever, and so I should try to enjoy it, even the hard or annoying parts. And sometimes it works. For a minute.
Until it doesn’t anymore.
And at those times, I put some fun music on YouTube and we dance.
And then later, he takes a nap and I take a break and during those quiet moments, I remember to be unabashedly thankful for him.
