Disclaimer…I wrote this story the other day, but then I never posted it. Before reading, know that I love Jake; he is not any better or worse than any other 3 year old kid. Whether you have experiences like this, or know someone who has, I hope you can relate. Not everyone can have patience every minute of every day. Jake is an amazing kid with so many good qualities. He is kind, and sensitive, and becoming a big help around the house. He is also going through a phase…don’t think I’m terrible for writing about it.
Today I was thinking about patience. Why is it so easy to put up with any annoying sound one day and so hard to stand the crying, and begging, and constant nagging another day? Jake is going through a phase where he is talking nonsense a lot. He jumps up and down by me, or climbs all over me when I am sitting down…all the while saying “goo goo, backa. Lee lee lacka”. The heat of the day makes his hands sticky, and they stick to my hair and pull it out. Or he tromps on my feet with his bare feet (it feels like he takes a layer of skin off my foot.) Some days I take it better than others.
I know most of the causes of dwindling patience, but they are things I usually can’t avoid. For example, I’m in a hurry…Jake takes an hour and a half to eat breakfast (so maybe that is a slight exaggeration. He’s usually done in an hour). He can’t find his shoes, then he can’t put them on (thank heavens for crocs these days.) Then he dawdles his way out to the car, tries to take a quick spin on his bike, or play in the dirt by the garage. When I finally get him to the car, he jumps over the back seat giggling “you can’t catch me”. All this would be fun if I weren’t already late. If you are wondering why I didn’t just pick him up and fling him in the car seat from the start, it’s because I have Allie in one arm and I’m trying to find her shoes with the other. If I set her loose in the garage with him the results are usually disastrous. (They played in the oil pan for the ‘52 Chevy, Jake tipped off a precariously placed car seat onto Allie and the cement floor, Jake begins to drill holes in boxes, etc.) I can only say “come here, quick” so many times in a nice tone before I start to lose my mind.
So here’s the scenario tonight…Jake came out of the tub, dripping wet, dragging the towel behind him. I was getting Allie in her jammies, so I hadn’t even come in to scrub him yet. Now there are puddles of water everywhere, and a shivering boy standing there half washed. I told him to get back in the tub and I finished with Allie. Poor girl didn’t get bed time stories tonight because I don’t have the patience. I figured three songs makes up for it.
I got Jake on the changing table and he brought a blow up plastic baseball bat with him. He doesn’t like getting lotion put on, or to have his ears cleaned. So he was using the bat to bop me on the head in a teasing manner, wanting to engage me in something other than cleaning the potatoes out of his ear. Instead of asking him to stop, I yanked the bat out of his hands and flung it across the room. He started to cry (of course, instead of working it out, I compounded the problem). After crying for a minute, he decided to be the bigger person, and while I was ignoring the cries, he decided to use words. “It made me sad when you threw my bat” he repeated, until he got a response from me. I told him that I didn’t like it when he bopped me on the head. He said “oh…sorry”. Problem solved. On better patience days, I would have said “please don’t bop me on the head with that.” He would have said, “please don’t cram that q-tip up my nose” and things would have been solved.
I don’t know why I can handle things some days and not others, but I am trying to work on patience. I hope that in trying, I get a little better each day. Mike has been gone all week, and although it’s hard, I’ve been handling things well until tonight. I guess it’s all adding up.
Like I said, I know I have two great kids, and any kid out there can try their parent’s patience no matter how good they are. I feel better after venting, so I hope you all understand.
I know most of the causes of dwindling patience, but they are things I usually can’t avoid. For example, I’m in a hurry…Jake takes an hour and a half to eat breakfast (so maybe that is a slight exaggeration. He’s usually done in an hour). He can’t find his shoes, then he can’t put them on (thank heavens for crocs these days.) Then he dawdles his way out to the car, tries to take a quick spin on his bike, or play in the dirt by the garage. When I finally get him to the car, he jumps over the back seat giggling “you can’t catch me”. All this would be fun if I weren’t already late. If you are wondering why I didn’t just pick him up and fling him in the car seat from the start, it’s because I have Allie in one arm and I’m trying to find her shoes with the other. If I set her loose in the garage with him the results are usually disastrous. (They played in the oil pan for the ‘52 Chevy, Jake tipped off a precariously placed car seat onto Allie and the cement floor, Jake begins to drill holes in boxes, etc.) I can only say “come here, quick” so many times in a nice tone before I start to lose my mind.
So here’s the scenario tonight…Jake came out of the tub, dripping wet, dragging the towel behind him. I was getting Allie in her jammies, so I hadn’t even come in to scrub him yet. Now there are puddles of water everywhere, and a shivering boy standing there half washed. I told him to get back in the tub and I finished with Allie. Poor girl didn’t get bed time stories tonight because I don’t have the patience. I figured three songs makes up for it.
I got Jake on the changing table and he brought a blow up plastic baseball bat with him. He doesn’t like getting lotion put on, or to have his ears cleaned. So he was using the bat to bop me on the head in a teasing manner, wanting to engage me in something other than cleaning the potatoes out of his ear. Instead of asking him to stop, I yanked the bat out of his hands and flung it across the room. He started to cry (of course, instead of working it out, I compounded the problem). After crying for a minute, he decided to be the bigger person, and while I was ignoring the cries, he decided to use words. “It made me sad when you threw my bat” he repeated, until he got a response from me. I told him that I didn’t like it when he bopped me on the head. He said “oh…sorry”. Problem solved. On better patience days, I would have said “please don’t bop me on the head with that.” He would have said, “please don’t cram that q-tip up my nose” and things would have been solved.
I don’t know why I can handle things some days and not others, but I am trying to work on patience. I hope that in trying, I get a little better each day. Mike has been gone all week, and although it’s hard, I’ve been handling things well until tonight. I guess it’s all adding up.
Like I said, I know I have two great kids, and any kid out there can try their parent’s patience no matter how good they are. I feel better after venting, so I hope you all understand.
1 comment:
I love your stories. I am laughing as I visualize Jake saying all of those things.
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