Have you seen those memes floating around of pictures of toddlers crying hysterically, with captions explaining why they are crying? Like, "I'm crying because my Mom gave me my red sippy cup instead of my blue sippy cup"? Those moments are not lost on our household. This morning, Mia shrieked and cried like a madwoman because I took away her [empty] breakfast plate and put it in the sink, and then I had the nerve to put her red shoes on instead of her white shoes. Also, let me also note that this was after having to give my kid a bath, because despite being accident free while in her undies all day every day for at least the past month, she managed to take the biggest crap ever in her overnight diaper first thing this morning, and having a multiple-angle blow out. [This is probably a sign for me to stop the overnight diaper, but this is the stuff for another post, and also, for after France].
I am not proud of myself. But let me say that this morning's activities were indeed the straw that broke the bag of marbles and scattered them everywhere.
Once I put her shoes on, and she was ready to go out the door, I sat myself down on the couch with my cup of coffee and ignored the bejeezus out of her while intently watching the Today show's Olympic coverage.
I am a patient person. I really am! In the worst tantrum, or in her most defiant moments, I keep my cool. I politely ask her not to put stickers on the furniture, please. Stickers are only for the paper. If you would like to play with your legos, please put away your markers first. If you put away your markers, then we can play legos, Okay? We do well. She responds to this kind of direction, and this is how we do things.
But this morning, patience there was not. No patience for Mia, and certainly no patience for the husband.
The husband, who, the night before was keeping us both up by coughing up a storm. All weekend, and all this week, he's gotten the cold that both Mia and I got last week. I told him this was a tough one, just take the cold medicine around the clock, and you'll get better. For reasons I cannot comprehend or pretend to explain, he kept resisting. First, he didn't like that I had bought cough and gold syrup instead of pills, so he resisted. Then, who the hell knows why he didn't like the pills that I happened to have left in my purse. Basically, he didn't want to take what I had, and when he was still coughing near 1am, he asked me, the dozing-not-sick-anymore-wife what he could do. Well, why don't you take the medicine I offered you three hours ago? He got mad - "Don't play the I told you so game right now". OH, I AM PLAYING IT. And then - "Well fine, where is it?" In my purse, where I put it back after you turned it down. "Where exactly in your purse?" [translation: Can you just get it for me?]. NO. GET IT YOURSELF, I AM TRYING TO SLEEP.
Well, as you can imagine, 15 minutes later, the coughing stopped and we were both able to go back to sleep. Then, this morning, when I half-playfully asked: "How're you feeling this morning, Mr. Stubborn?", he had the nerve to tell me that he wasn't convinced that it was the cold medicine that made him stop coughing. Well, I assure you, I ignored the crap out of him this morning, too.
Now, if only I could apply the same tactic at work, which, as usual, is the reason my at-home patience is completely worn out.
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