“Hey Mommy – Can I have some more apple juice? My cup is empty.”
“Sure, honey! Just a minute and I’ll fix it for you.”
“Okay! I’m going to go play in the Living Room. You can bring it to me in there.”
SCREEEEEEEEECH
“OOOOH no you didn’t, girlfriend.
Before you were born, I endured being constantly miserably vomitous, actual vomiting more times than I cared to count, gaining bone-chilling amounts of weight and having to be horrified by it on the scale and in the mirror EVERY DANG DAY, living in a constant state of zombie-like exhaustion, spending 30% of my days peeing and waking up every 30 minutes at night to pee even more, not being able to eat the things I love, snoring like a foghorn, WADDLING, swelling, sweating, cramping, craving, crying for no reason, forgetfulness, horrifically Junior-High-looking face breakouts and acid reflux, all culminating in getting my entire abdomen sliced open, dug into, and YOU yanked out of it.
For the next week, I suffered through untold amounts of pain as my ripped open abdomen contracted horrifically all while trying to heal back together again, as my internal organs tried to refind themselves after being shoved to the netherest regions of my body cavity, and as I attempted to figure out how to nourish another human being with nothing but my own resources all while getting absolutely zero sleep and being in complete shock at the gigantic responsibility of caring for another human being.
For the first year of your life, I wiped your butt at least 3,000 times, gagged as I changed diapers fouler than the smell of the Bog of Eternal Stench, somehow managed to salvage my car and my sanity after you pulled out all of the contents of one of those diapers and smeared it all over your face, your carseat, your mouth, and then proceeded to clap the remainder of it repeatedly and thereby splatting it all over the car, I fed you morning and night by sacrificing the comfort of my body being only mine, woke up all night long at the beck of your cry, couldn’t sleep when you weren’t crying because I was so wrought with thoughts of you, cleaned out your mouth after you ate a ladybug, removing each horrific wing and body part from the inner corners of your jaws, carried you approximately 50 miles, endured your horrific screaming, fed you disgustingly cementous rice cereal and oh-so-smeary baby food, dressed you, bathed you, held you, and lived with your puke on my shirt at all times.
In the second, third, and fourth year of your life, I lovingly taught you to talk, wiped your butt and cleaned your diapers as your poo got even nastier, still woke up in the middle of the night with you when you had nightmares, fixed your breakfast, lunch and dinner, potty-trained you and dealt with poo now in panties – a much nastier proposition than in diapers, responded to approximately 556 calls of “I pooooooooped!!! Come wiiiiiiipe me!!!”, taught you your letters, your states, your countries, and your presidents, answered the same set of questions approximately 5,681 times, took you lovingly to gymnastics, to the playground, to the zoo, and to your friend’s houses, woke up when you woke up no matter when that was, changed your sheets six times in one night when you got a stomach bug and couldn’t hit the trash can to save your life, bathed you, read inane Clifford books until my brain completely caved in on itself, and watched more Dora the Explorer than anyone but the most vile of criminals should have to endure.
But now that you’re four and a half years old, and now that you just asked me to deliver your juice on a silver platter because you’re too busy playing to wait 60 seconds for me to pour it, it’s time that this relationship righted itself.
Here’s the way it works from here on out, kid.
You will learn to cook and prepare my meals, you will scrub the toilets and mop the floors, you will vacuum and do the dishes, you will change your little brother’s diapers, you will sort the mail and pay the bills, you will make up all of our beds despite the fact that I’ve never made up any of our beds, you will clean up after yourself and your little brother, you will learn to wipe your own butt and you will paint my toenails while I eat truffles, not having to share a single one with you.
AND YOU WILL STILL NOT BE CAUGHT UP TO WHAT I’VE DONE FOR YOU.
Oh – and by the way, I love you. And here’s your juice.”
Hahaha…whenever I complained about having to do a chore or do something for the sibs, my mom would always retort back with “Why do you think I had you first?” (I KNOW you can picture her saying that, right?) I totally had a Cinderella complex…vacuum the floors, dust the furniture, do the dishes, braid your sister’s hair, find your brother’s shoes…
….poor Ali. Sorry dear, it IS the curse of being the oldest, and a girl to boot. :)
But being the oldest kid DOES have its advantages too! She’ll see that too..eventually.
You might need to take her to lunch and explain the advantages :)
I say this to my child at least once a week, usually when it’s me asking her to clean up some mess she’s made or put away her toys and she kindly informs me “That’s okay, you can do it.” It makes me want to pull out my hair.
This is simply awesome. My 3 kids are now each at the ages where they are fully capable of getting just about everything for themselves. At times, I think, “Look at me! I’ve arrived! ” Other times, while I’m handing them their juice because they’re too engrossed in the iCarly storyline to get up and get it themselves, I think “Look at me! I failed!” Thanks for the great read.
Isn’t that the epitome of parenting?? Thinking we’ve succeeded one minute, only to be convinced we’ve failed the next! :) At least we get to experience both!
AWESOME! AND AMEN!!!! I feel like standing up and cheering in a Mommy’s United kind of way! ;-)
Maybe this should be the Declaration of Independence for the United Mommies Union… hmm.
*that should be Mommies United……. My brain is fried, my dear, sweet children have reduced my brain back to a 1st grade level of thinking.
Love it! And the story about the diaper in the car made me cringe in sympathy! Had a similar crib experience twice in one week….ugh!! Let us know how Operation Mommy’s Not a Servant goes! :)
oh I love it! you made me laugh so hard I almost squeezed out a baby. :)
thanks for the read, Rachel!
I would be so proud of myself if I did that!!! I shall have to try harder.
Amen. Amen. Amen.
Jackson will be 5 in just a few weeks and we’re still having to supervise the butt wiping around here. He wipes his hiney just fine by himself at school, but somehow when he gets home his butt wiping abilities just disappear. So frustrating!!!
Rick was reading this too and said, “she should be a writer”!
She *is* a writer! :)
very very funny. Now will it work. :) :)
I so can see my sister in this post. My nephew who is 2 1/2 informs us all the time “no you do it for me, me busy”. I will have to show her this post she will laugh out loud like I did. I can’t wait for my new niece/nephew to arrive I am sure they will gang up on us with their demands.
Too funny…too true and good luck getting Ali to do any of that. AND if you do… kudos…you would be the best woman EVER!
I love this so very much. I think I’m going to print it out and give it to Beege… she can read now, surely it’s time she started cooking and cleaning. And maybe it would benefit her to know that I’m NOT the only mommy who thinks that kids should do some things for themselves.
I am so sick of wiping butts.
I am SO glad that neither of my kids (knock wood) have had a poop smearing escapade. I almost barfed just READING about the thing in the car.
A thousand points to Rachel for the Labyrinth reference.
Am I the only one that caught it?
So far you’re the only one. I probably should get 10 points deducted because I had to look up the exact wording of it – but it’s one of the only things I remember about that movie. That and I thought Michael Jackson was in it – obviously I was about 5 when I saw it last!
I got it and cheered a little inside. ‘”The bog of eternal stench” is a very helpful phrase in life, I find.
Talking of old animated fantasy films, my husband has decided recently that I’m vicious but cute like Fizzgig from Dark Crystal. I think it’s a compliment…
Agreed, great rant and a great reference. Labyrinth of all things. Fantastic. When I get on one of those kicks, my husband warns my children that I am going “Claire Huxtable” and they should just be quite and take it.
That’s awesome! I miss Claire… I need to get some season DVDs or something.
I think the post is great. Good luck on the Ali doing things. However, remember you are still the servant of one who calls you “the servent who calls herself mommy”. Very funny. I so remember the car inncident, it was BAD.
incident, I can not spell.
Feeling a little bitter today, are we? :) Funny stuff…
Not bitter – all in fun!
AMEN!!! My 6 year old daughter asked me JUST YESTERDAY if i could deliver her food to her in the play room because her favorite show was on!! Ummm…NO, you will eat dinner with the family. I LOVED this post! So nice to know that we are not alone in this battle. :) thanks!!
You’re welcome!! You mean you don’t deliver food to the movie theater for your kids??? :)
Loved it! Just this morning I heard my son calling from his room to let me know he was thirsty, so I took him a glass of water. He proceeded to pitch a fit because a.) it wasn’t milk and b.) it wasn’t in a sippy cup. I just left the water on the table and told him if he was thirsty he’d drink it. It wasn’t easy to listen to him scream (at 4 a.m.) but he eventually hushed and drank the water. Yay, score one for Me! Next time, I’ll have to take your tactic and explain to him how I stayed in bed for months on end and weekly shots just to get him here.
My children are now looking at me like I have lost my mind because I am laughing so hard at this post. Why am I laughing so hard? Because that is so my life!!! Thanks for a great laugh today!!
Awesome :) Glad to hear I’m not the only one!!
As cautious and meticulous as Ali is, I would totally have her helping with dishes. Very small chance she will break things. And just think what a thorough duster she would be… If you started a spread sheet for her that documented all her completed tasks, you could really get alot out of her. I think you are really onto something. B and C have to do chores, so she would be in good company!
She definitely has chores – she’s just going to have more from now on! ;)
LOVE this!!!! Absolutely perfect!!!
I think the best thing to do when it comes to this kind of circumstances is to teach your children that sooner or later, they will have to move out and live independently and they’ll have to do these things eventually.
YES.
vivid post here! lol I remember those days being sick alllll day long…don’t know where the term “morning” sickness came from.
So…did she get the juice in the livingroom?
She took her own juice in the living room after I made her wait in the kitchen for it. :)
OMG…if one of children did that in the car, I would totally take it to get professionally cleaned. Loved this post. This post would be a great thing to give her when she is pregnant with her own in the way future.
Too funny & true! Could not stop laughing…great job!
loved this. it just goes to show that we born naturally sinful. how selfish are we?! i mean, our kids show it without us ever having to teach them.
This is too funny! Nice to know I’m not alone. I found your blog from a different post that was pinned on Pinterest. I’m enjoying reading several of your posts. I also live in Birmingham :)
Lauren
Just this morning my 3 year old promised when she is a grown up to always make me breakfast in bed:) I wrote it down and she “signed” it, lol…I’ll let you know how that work out for me :)
Nice!! I haven’t started getting my kid to sign her promises yet, but I’ve certainly considered it!!
This is great!
Even though I’m not the mommy, I am with the kids more waking hours than mommy is and it’s crazy to hear how they treat mommy vs. me!
The therapists that come to work with Noah, age 6, (Autism, MR, non-verbal, behavior you wouldn’t believe, not potty trained, and poop that has offended neighbors when airing out the house) will tell me how much better Noah responds to me and is more productive because I don’t “Baby” him, but have expectations and demand respect.
The 4 year old is very intelligent, but seeks attention constantly. When I don’t supply it, he goes to play on his own… When mom doesn’t supply the desired attention, he throws himself to the ground screaming and calling her names, and throwing toys, food, etc. AND THEN SHE GIVES IN! With me, he picks up toys when I ask, cleans his room, puts his dishes in the sink and even helps me with Noah…. Mom doesn’t understand what her reactions have caused as far as behavior and what her kids are capable of doing!
It gets worse during the school year when mommy has to drop Dylan off at Preschool, the teachers text me asking “Are you dropping Dylan off or is mom today?” Just to see what kind of day it will be with Dylan!
I’ve tried telling the mom how I handle different situations, (and I know she sees how they act with me) but I guess since she works so much and often only sees them awake 3 days a week, if that, she has guilt and wants to make up for it.
Is there a way to help mom realize what the long-term consequences of her actions now will become with out offending her? Any suggestions?
It’s a hard call for sure. I certainly don’t have the expertise to offer any advice! Just keep doing what you’re doing and hope that she notices.
I love the clapping in the car part!
Noah not only is a huge 6 year old (4’3″ and 70lbs), but loves fruit :), veggies :), bugs :(, dirt :(, everything he can fit in his mouth (as if he doesn’t have a sense of taste), and that comes out the other end in the most disgusting-smelling, runny, grainy, strange-colored form possible… and there’s a lot of it! Having the “sensory” issues he has, if it is left in his underwear too long before I realize it…
For example: I’m making dinner, he has to be locked in a room with nothing he can eat/break/throw, etc. He has an accident— first warning is the smell creeping through the house over the smell of whatever I’m cooking… by then it’s usually too late… he doesn’t like the feel of it in his underwear, he prefers it between his fingers and toes, so he takes off his pants and finger paints the window, walls, doors, his bed, rocking chair, and everything in his room, and here’s where I found your clapping in the car story hit so close to home… He jumps and flaps in the pile that’s plopped on the floor when he took off his pants… same effect as clapping….
Then he has to track it through the house to the shower and the clean up begins. All windows open in the hot California sun baking the grotesque stink into everything he touched while I clean “the source (him).” Then I have to find somewhere else to contain him while I clean the empty room of the house where we have to lock him up when we make food because he will reach into a pan of bacon if he’s close enough.
I totally sympathize with you!