It’s difficult, sometimes, to be nice to my children. I tire of the seemingly endless opportunities I provide for them to stare at me with indifference, roll their eyes in boredom, then turn and skulk away in the middle of what I only a moment before considered to be a conversation.

I don’t WISH to dislike them. It’s just that at times they appear to me to be on some kind of mission to suck all of the patience and maternal love right out of me. This leaves me sour and disinterested and just plain grumpy for several hours after our encounters. The seed of the discord is inevitably random and unexpected. It could be that I don’t think they should ditch a previous commitment to do something More Fun – which is a fairly common issue with teenagers as you might know. But it might also be something so tragic as my not wanting to rush off to the store RIGHT AWAY to buy a new three-ring binder which is DESPERATELY NEEDED for school. Tomorrow. Everyone else already has one and they don’t.

As I watch the arguments and my reaction from outside of myself (and repeat them over and over under my breath with foul language added for effect) I’m not sure if I am not handling these situations well, or if it really doesn’t matter how I handle them because I’m the Mother and therefore am the most spectacularly out-of-touch human in the universe. I tend to lean toward the latter.

I knew being the mom of toddlers was exhausting, but I didn’t think about the mental exhaustion of dealing with people who can SPEAK. Especially when their logic is subjective and self-serving. It’s time for bed. Oops, not until my toddler decides HE is ready to go to sleep… aaahhh… the infinite blog fodder that is Parenthood.