The Drama of Raising Kids
Raising kids can feel a lot like watching some dramatic television. And I love it.
It started. They’ve been up for about 30 seconds and it has already started.
“Get your arm off me!”
“You’re breathing in my face.”
“Stop touching me.”
Angel Eyes
It doesn’t seem to matter where they are, my kids can find ways to get on each other’s nerves. Taking a toy, stealing food, touching each other, watching the same movie, breathing the same air, or even giving the wrong look.
By the wrong look, I don’t actually mean a glare or a disgusted stare. It just means one brother happened to look at the other and the stars were aligned in the wrong place so now it is a circumstance punishable by a fiery death.
“He was watching me!”
Wait, you were sitting in an open space reading a book out loud and you expected your younger brother to NOT plop down in close proximity and listen? How does that work in your world?
Property Brothers
The top bunk is prime real estate in our house. We have 4 kids, with 2 bunk beds. So both top bunks are where it is at. This is all good until one of the kids decides he doesn’t want anyone up in his bed.
One moment they are playing nicely, chatting, having a good time, and probably discussing a cure to cancer. The next, “GET OFF MY BED! I DON’T WANT YOU IN MY BED. ISAIDGETOUTOFHEREWHYAREYOUSTILLINMYBEDDADHEWONTGETOUTOFMYBEDIDONTLIKEHIMANYMOREWEARENTEVERGOINGTOBEFRIENDSAGAINBECAUSEHEWONTGETOUTOFMYBED.”
The words all begin to run together until they stop becoming words and its just a high pitched squeal coming through a crack in all of time.
I’m still struggling to find a calm way to end such encounters. I go in with my guard up, like a hunter who has been stripped of all his firearms coming upon a pack of wild dingos.
I’m not sure if you can hunt dingos.
I do know it is wrong to hunt your children.
The Fast and Furious Four
The transmission has recently gone out in our van. While we are waiting for that repair we have to make our way around in our car. The problem, as I mentioned, is we have four kids.
This isn’t a problem for the reasons most people immediately think.
Oh, you have four kids? I wouldn’t have more than 1.5 kids. You must have your hands full. How will you feed them? Isn’t your house loud?
No, my hands aren’t full. I refuse to carry all of them at once.
We only feed 2 kids a week.
And isn’t your house dull?
Anyway, it’s a problem because we can’t all go anywhere together. Unless of course we take the car seats out and double up on buckling…which of course has NEVER happened.
With 3 (or hypothetically 4) kids in the back seat of a car, there is bound to be touching, which we all know is apparently off limits.
Hasn’t anyone come up with a way to not just buckle in a kid but some sort of device to hold their arms in place?
What about dividers which maybe give a little shock if you try to cross it? Like an underground fence but that divides the car up instead of keeping your dog in the yard.
In the beginning
So why, then, did all four kids plus myself start the day off in the youngest’s pack-n-play?
Because even though we every last nerve of every last person is shot, we need each other and we love each other more than anything.
We need the closeness.
At least in small doses.
There are moments we rock out in the car to Pentatonix, High School Musical, or Relient K. Each kid singing and encouraging the others to sing and dance along.
When they play together they push one another to be creative. The things they can build with legos is beginning to impress me.
Not like before when I had to act impressed by the stack of legos they called a house.
So the moment in the pack-n-play lasted all of 3 minutes before the whining and yelling began and I threw each one of them from the highest mountaintop.
But it was a good 3 minutes and I’ll remember it fondly.
After the conclusion of this post, I heard our four-year-old exclaim “OW,” only to be met by “You’re not bleeding,” by our eight-year-old.
