MY KID LISTENED AND I REGRET IT

(Side note here – sorry for the long quiet period. Our move to the UK is just three weeks away and I have been completely overwhelmed with job hunting and move management. Hopefully I am now on top of things and can get back to my normal writing schedule. Thanks for sticking with me!)

I have spent roughly 90% of the last four years of my life telling the kids to do something and being ignored in return. In thinking about it, I really have no idea why I continue trying to tell them anything? Must be that parental guilt or something…or just insanity. Probably #2.

Anyways, I have gotten so used to the kids ignoring me, that it does not begin to cross my mind that they might actually listen every now and again. But you know kids, they like to keep you on your toes. Just when you think it is safe to tell them to do something, they turn around and jump right into action when you least expect it. This is what happened to me, and I totally learned my lesson. From now on, I’ll stick to my normal nagging or be much more specific in my commands.

We had just gotten back home after some errands and found a parking spot in front of the neighbor’s house. Addy was begging to play with the neighbor’s kid and I was telling her that they needed to play in the garden because it was sunny for once and not completely miserably cold. After much haranguing, she finally agreed. I got her out of the car and walked around to get Giorgie out. Thirty seconds later I stood up with kid #2 and found a completely empty sidewalk in front of me. Sidewalk, walkways, doorways, street…emptiness in every direction.

At that moment, every organ in my body took up residence in my windpipe. I called her name a few times without any answers. Mind racing, I walked over to see if she had gone to our front door. Nope. I began spinning in circles and screaming loudly looking in every possible direction all at once. The only response I got was the little one adding in her own frantic calls for her sister.

I began jogging down the block, trying to cross off all possibilities from my list. Not at our house, not standing in front of the neighbor’s house, not wandering down the street. My job turned into a sprint and I finally found her standing on the bike path behind our row of houses, waiting to go into the gate to the back garden. i.e. exactly where I had told her to go. She was bawling her eyes out because she could hear my screaming for her and she couldn’t get the gate to open.

As my organs descended back to their normal homes, my mind cleared up enough for me to remember that I had left the second kid standing on the sidewalk in front of the house. Clearly, I am a top contender for Best Mother 2013. I took the shortest path, running in through the back gate and dumping Addy in the garden with promises to kill her in a minute, through the house, hurdling over the cat and dog and back out the front door. Poor little G was still standing on the sidewalk calling for her sister.

I called my mom later and told her what had happened. She got a giant grin on her face and exclaimed her happiness that my kids were paying me back for all of the times I had done that to her. Her exact quote, “One down, 999 to go”.

Thanks mom!