I love my kids, I just hate parenting
Detective Munch and I haven’t been seeing eye-to-eye a lot lately. We tend to butt heads as is, but lately it’s been a bit intense.
I say stop, he says go! I say yes, he says no! I say up, he says left! (We’re working on his opposites.) Some of it is typical five-year-old defiance, some of it is clashing priorities, some of it is matching personalities.
Thankfully, we do have some common ground.
I’m no stranger to giving passive-aggressive gifts to subtly – or not – display my true feelings.
But my in-laws don’t play.
Thanks to the gift they got for my son, Christmas will be a not-so-silent night this year.
When you’re a kid, all you want for Christmas, or Hanukkah, or your birthday, are toys. All kinds of toys. Board games, action figures, lightsabers, it barely matters. They’re fun, and they make you happy.
When you’re parent, those same toys become a major source of irritation. They clutter your home, they empty your wallet, they give you a headache…
If you’re lucky.
My son says plenty of ridiculous stuff, but none is more ridiculous than the stuff he says when he’s trying to get out of going to bed.
I know I’m not alone in being both amused and frustrated by the nonsense our kids come up with in attempts to delay their bedtime, especially since Netflix created images based on some of the goofy excuses actual real-life kids have deployed.
They even used one of mine!
Until you’re a parent (or a sports fan), it might be hard to understand how you can love something with all of your heart while, at the exact same time, it drives you so crazy you want to run away and live in a log cabin.
Kids have an infinite capacity for inspiring both your awe and your annoyance. Based on my son’s recent behavior and burgeoning intellectual development, five-year-olds are right smack in the sweet spot.