Mama Got the Toddler Crazies, Too

Ohmagod. Today was a day for the birds. All three kids have been sick. like really sick. Vomiting, the runs, coughing, sneezing, feeling like they want to die. You know, all the things parents love watching their kids go through. 😏

So my #2, Monroe, was really not feeling it. To be honest, she had been a goddam nightmare. Like, you want to talk about a source of rage for a mother who has got nothing left to give. Bingo, she has been it for me this week. Which I know is totally unreasonable because she just turned two, but seriously, what about parenting puts me in the place of reason these days, anyway?

So this week, in her tired, sick, two-year-old fashion, Monroe started a new thing. 🙄 Can you tell how much I love it already? What is this lovely thing, you ask? Let me have the pleasure of sharing with you.

First, Monroe asks me for a specific food item, say, an apple. So I bring her said apple. She then screams and cries like I’ve just severed her favorite thumb for sucking, then throws the food back at me yelling, “No apple, no apple, no apple.”

Now, since I’m juggling three sick kids and can’t do anything for myself (like eat food), of course I pick that dang apple off the floor and eat it! (5 second rule, anyone? Okay, more like 5 minute rule, but I digress...) Okay, so I pick the apple up and cram it into my face, and that makes her MAD. Like put-on-your-noise-canceling-ear-protectors-because-she’s-about-to-blow-the-roof-off mad.

All because I brought her the apple that she asked for but no longer wants but secretly still wants and gets mad when I take it and walk away. Or she doesn’t want it and is just insane. Either way, 😑😑😑.

So I was recording a Marco Polo to my friends about this, and as I was saying it, I stepped outside myself and watched myself complain about my child's irrational behavior and was like, whoa. Do I do this? Like maybe not about an apple. But in my marriage? Or in life in general? And then I stepped back in. It was weird out there.

But really, do I ask for something, then get it, but maybe it’s not exactly how I envisioned it, so then I throw it back and get mad about it because I wanted it but not like that?

I mean, obviously not me, no never me, but you know, the royal “we.” Do "we" adults do that? I’m sitting there mocking my 2yr old, then I’m like, oh sh*t, that’s me! (Yes it is me.) 😂😂😂 I want help with something. Then I get help, but it's not exactlly how I wanted the help to go down. So I get annoyed at the help, then I don't want the help. But I still want the bleeping help! Familiar, anyone? #insanity

So I don’t know what the cool conclusion is, except that if you’re a parent who is frustrated by a toddler brain, I FEEL YOU. They are little crazy people at this age with underdeveloped brains, and that can be HARD. And, maybe you also are the toddler brain in your own life. Ouch. It's rather humbling that we may not be much more together than Monroe. So, there’s that! So mock a little, but not too hard. Lots of compassion. For the littles and for us big ones, too. And don’t let that toddler get you down.