My kids have shown me what true, unconditional love is all about. I seriously don’t know what or who I have ever loved that could hold a candle to the type of insane, overwhelming adoration I have for my little boys. However, these same angelic children have brought new hatred into my life. In the almost four years I’ve been a parent, they have made me hate things that I never could have imagined hating. Things that prior to children, I never even thought about. Things like…
My kids go nuts over balloons. They love them. Balloons are EVERYWHERE and everyone somehow thinks they are awesome gifts for toddlers. I’m pure evil if I refuse to allow possession of the balloon, so I usually grit my teeth and allow the jerk sweet person handing them out to give one to each of my children. For the next ten hours I have to remind them to, “keep the balloon out of your mouth!” or “stop throwing it behind the tv!” Inevitably, something tragic will happen to one of the balloons and the battle begins for the other one. They scream, fight, and wrestle over it. I threaten to pop it if they can’t share and soon everyone is crying and cursing. (Well, me mostly.) Finally, I am able to get rid of the evil air pocket while they are sleeping or someone succeeds in popping it, causing a major meltdown for all involved. Balloons. Yuck.
Before I had children I thought that bath time would be the most fun part of my day as a parent. I envisioned sweet chubby toddlers gently splashing in mountains of bubbles. I imagined drying and powdering cooing babies and then rocking them as they fell asleep, tranquilized by a relaxing, magical bath time experience. What I quickly learned is that bath time sucks. I’m out of breath and patience by the time I get the kids undressed and into the water. There is the battle of how the water is waaaayyy too cold and then waaayyyy too hot, followed by violent splashing and cups full of water thrown over the side of the tub turning the tile into a skating rink. The kids refuse to sit down, they slip and slide all over the place and will not stop drinking the bath water! After begging for cooperation and preventing twenty-six near fatal head injuries, I drain the tub. The same children who ran from me screaming while I wrestled them into the water, now howl bitterly that they don’t want to get out. After crying for the next twenty minutes, they decide they need snacks before bed so they end up going to sleep dirty and sticky anyway. It is no wonder my kids only bathe three times a week!
Talk about a necessary evil. I have to have them or all of our clothes would be on the floor, but I seriously despise hangers. My kids are drawn to them like magnets. There are only a few things hangers can be if left in the hands of a three year old: Drumsticks or weapons. Weapons seem to be the choice for my boys. They whack everything in sight including each other, use them for sword fights and pretend they’re guns (which I don’t encourage or even know how they figured out.) Only after I’ve yelled enough about not using them for weapons, do the hangers turn into drumsticks. I try to hang up clothes at night or during nap time just to avoid the violence and noise.
They are sticky, messy, loaded with dyes and sugar; and since my 21 month old swallows them whole by the handful, a choking hazard. Fruit snacks are a form of addictive kiddie drug that I can’t seem to get away from. I try hard not to buy them but somehow the kids get them from other sources. Soft, damp gummies end up stuck to clothing, in their car seats and mushed into skin folds of my corn syrup addicted sons. Nothing makes them happier and nothing makes me feel like I’m spoon feeding them poison quite like a bag of fruit snacks.
5. Candy/Toy Machines
They put them at the entrance and exit of every store and restaurant in existence. These machines cause nothing but grief and upset for parents everywhere. The candy is stale, overly priced and always ends up spilling out of the dispenser onto the floor. The toys are cheap plastic choking hazards inside of other choking hazards, as the plastic containers are smooth, cylindrical and impossible for kids to resist mouthing. And my kids (yours too!) would rather have half a handful of broken stale candy from these mother-loving machines than an entire king sized candy bar from the checkout lane. Somewhere, an evil genius is laughing at our expense all the way to the bank, parents. Quarter by quarter…all the way to the bank.
