Mornings and I are not close friends. By not not close friends, I mean we are like warring school yard moms. We spit daggers at each other at pick-up but both are too well-bred to throw the first punch. I wake up hating everyone in the world and about twenty minutes later I magically care about the people in my immediate surroundings.
I come by my feelings of morning hatred naturally. My mother did not wake up well and along with her crappy eye-sight she handed down to me me her inability to process data first thing. Interestingly enough, my father is a hap.hap.hap.happy morning person. I did not get his Rise and Shine abilities. In fact he is so annoying about his joy when my parents were first married my mother contemplated either leaving him or killing him. Since she loved him, she decided to take one for the team and get out of bed thirty minutes before him. This gave her enough time wake up to a level that she could stand seeing the site of him without stabbing his eyes out.
Clearly my mother was a much nicer person than I am because I'm not getting up one second before I have to. Everyone forced to be around me in the morning must learn to leave me the Hell alone. If you don't, that's your fault. It's not that difficult; I don't come out with fists flying and snarling. I just can't think very well and need time to ease into the Land of the Living. Don't jack with me and you should make it out the door with your arm hairs intact.
Having kids has put a fair amount of strain on me in the mornings. It's stressful but I've been working on everyone for a few years now and even my youngest repeats the phrase, "Don't talk to Mommy until she's had her tea." It's been working well for us. The problem comes when one of the kids becomes so overwhelmed with ideas racing in their brain that the words simply explode out of their mouths and they can't stop themselves.
At least that is what I tell myself. I really can't believe something I gave birth to would be stupid enough to get in my face on purpose. So I cling to the dream that its beyond their control and work on developing new ways to keep my fingers from clenching around their throats. That right there is the sign of the exsistence of maternal love. Not baking cookies, or loving every.single.thing.they.do. It's not killing them outright when they don't leave you alone in the mornings.
The rest of the day I am ok with the questions. This is what parenting is all about: kids needing to learn and me being here to answer those questions and teaching them figure out how to handle the world. Now that the kids are older I am actually enjoying discussions about the differences in religions, a series versus a parrallel circuit, how to unload a file from a memory stick and put it in the right folder and when did the Mongols rule China. I've been waiting twenty some years to answer, "I dunno, I just work here."
Please. Just...not first thing in the morning.
Parenting means sacrificing for you kids, I get that. I stopped smoking so I could get pregnant, money for new shoes goes to the kids and I keep mine for several years. My dream of owning a touring motorcycle and traveling Australia is on hold until after the last kid graduates college. I know. But does that mean that I can not carve few minutes out of the day in the morning to myself? A few precious minutes where I check the news on my iPad, sip a hot caffeinated beverage and slowly remember how to spell my name? Is it so wrong for a parent to say, "No. Not now, Baby. If you don't leave Mommy alone I'm going to stab your eyes out with a glue stick."
Yes, it would seem that asking that is too much. Everyone morning the mantra "Don't talk to Mommy until she's had her tea." is spoken and yet within seconds the questions start a full frontal assault.
Todays's verbal offensive came before I poured the milk in my tea. "Mummy, how many sisters did Cleopatra have?"
WARNING: this is a trick. Connor is studying Ancient Egypt in class and already knows the answer. She wants me to guess wrong so she can show how right she is. Knowing that she is delibertly trying to set me up for a fall, I takea small sip of tea, sit back and let her have it right between the eyes.
I tell her three sisters, two older and one younger. "But why did she get the throne if she had older sistes?" She counters, not willing to be beaten so quickly. "The older two died while their father was still alive and on the throne. Therefore Cleopatra was the oldest surving sister." Connor's mouth curled up first with shock, then snarled with anger.
"BOO YA! IN YOUR FACE! I win Baby!"
I may be brain dead and not sure if its winter or summer, but I still remember my Ancient Egyptian stuff. Mainly beacuse its useless to me in a job interview. Important information like where my keys are, remembering to keep an umbrella in my car or how many eggs to use in a cake are stored deep in the bowels of my brain, not easily accessed. But ask me about canopic jars, purification rituals or the importance of the annual flooding of the Nile River and I pull the most amazing and interesting facts right out thin air. Hello.... remember Geek Mom? I wasn't joking about that.
Unfortunately for Connor it's too early in the morning for me to remember self contol and to censer myself. This leads to more than a little butt-wiggling, an impressivly complex victory dance, some finger-pointing and a rather significant Bronx Cheer.
She storms off and I return to drowning my sorrows in my tea in quiet...which is all I wanted.
I know.....not my best mature parenting moment. I recognize that this was not the best way to nurture my child and encourage her interest in knowledge. As soon as I wake up I'm sure I'll feel bad about it. Until then, let this be a lesson for one and all.
Don't talk to me before I've had my tea.
No comments:
Post a Comment