When I was pregnant with my little girl, I often wondered what I would be like as a Mommy. I felt fairly confident that I could discipline my child, answer the tough questions that might come my way and still let my angel know that we loved her with all our heart. I thought that I was
adult enough, that I had seen a lot in my life to prepare me for having a child. Don’t get me wrong. I was nervous, but I still felt fairly positive that I could handle being a Mom. Four years later, my husband, Aaron and I, have a beautiful, intelligent, witty, curious, with a small touch of her Mommy’s OCD, little girl who has made us realize that we didn’t know as much as we thought we did. This is our life!
There are times that I have been told, I could argue with a fence post. I feel that given the opportunity, I can give a good argument on why something should be a certain way. I think that I am capable of a persuasive argument with another person. That’s not really the case when you have a 4 year old.
A couple of nights ago, I put Kiera in the bathtub. While she was in the tub, I broached the subject of changing out her Santa earrings for some other earrings. It went something like this:
I began my opening argument. “Kiera, it’s time to change your earrings. Christmas is over, honey.”Never looking up from her bubble bath, she responded with, “No, that’s ok. I like these.”
I prepared myself for the ensuing discussion by pulling out her earring collection. “Well, baby, I know you like them, but look at all these other earrings you have.” I then proceeded to show her the rows of earrings I was holding and described them.
“Look, how about the bees?”
Kiera briefly glanced up and looked to the earrings I held. “No.”
“Well, how about these pink flowers?
Again, she glanced up from the toy ducks in her bubble bath. “Hmm…no.”
Sighing deeply, I responded, “Well, what about these blue whales?”
Kiera looked at the earrings I pointed to, sighed and said, “Those are dolphins…umm…no.”
I decided my Vanna White moves were not working and began to run short on patience, I asked “Bows?”
“No.”
“Butterflies?”
“No.”
“Pretty blue flowers?”
“No.”
Grumbling internally, I asked, “pink hearts?”
Finally, she turned her attention back to the earrings I held. “Where are the pink hearts?”
Feeling hopeful, I responded, “Right here, honey.”
She studied the pink earrings for a brief moment and said, “ummm…nooo.”
Taking a deep breath, I quickly entertained the idea of bribery before tossing the idea aside. I responded, “Honey, we have to change your earrings. Christmas is over. We need to put in new earrings.”
Kiera looked at me briefly, then began to look over the earrings contemplatively.
Now, this is the moment… Moms, you know this moment. The moment where you briefly think you have control of the situation. That brief, shiny moment, where you think your child sees your reasoning. That you will win! That moment where you feel triumphant, the Mom of the year award…. and then…
My sweet child looked at me with a serious face. She then pointed to her left earring and then the right earring she was wearing and said, “But this is Lancey and Doddy. They don’t want to. They are too sad.”
Yup. You guessed it. That moment just deflated like a balloon being popped. All logic had flown out the window. Now, I was not just up against a stubborn 4 year old, but I was also up against a left earring named Lancey and a right earring named Doddy. Not only do they have names, but apparently are going through a rough stage of their life and are “too sad” to deal with the possibility of losing out to another set of earrings.
And just like that I had lost the argument. Well, let’s not say lost…let’s go with the argument was put on the shelf until bath time was over.
Eventually, I did win. I would love to say that it was through my wonderful logic, that I convinced her and she excitedly told me to change her earrings. But, it was after we dipped the new earrings in antibacterial ointment, or in a 4-year-old’s language, “magical medicine that makes earrings not hurt.”
I’ll take the win.
Rowonna McNeely is a graphic artist for Willie’s T’s Screenprint & Embroidery. She is a mother of a four year old girl and step mother of two adult girls. Her crazy life includes a dog, Sloane and psychotic cat, Gracie. Both females. She is married to her prince, who is outnumbered by the opposite gender.
