Our Kids Know Us Best

As a mom our kids know us better than anyone else.

Not in the romantic way you describe when you talk about your spouse knowing your preferences and little nuances about your personality.

No our kids know our flaws intimately. They know our weaknesses and call them out in such an innocent way sometimes it catches us off guard leaving us feeling gutted and somehow like less of a human being for being so awful. Other times they do it in a way we can’t stop laughing.

Like last night, I ran back downstairs after bath time to grab Madi's face creams. Do not get me started on the mess that is perioral dermatitis and the journey of creams and antibiotics to fix it! Anyway, as I’m in the kitchen grabbing the creams, Madi stood at the top of the staircase and shouted “mom yous coming up here?”

I said “yeah Madi I’m coming I just had to get your creams” she heard a cabinet door close and me heading back up the stairs. She saw me chewing. “Yous get chocolate?”

Caught. Red handed. Or in this case chocolate mouthed.

It was at this point I realized my child knows me entirely too well. She knows even in her little two year old world she knows that if I am downstairs alone I will absolutely grab a Hershey’s kiss I don’t have to share and enjoy it on my walk back up the stairs. Her little voice “yous get chocolate?” She has had a very perceptive ear for wrappers of any kind and smells of chocolates for a while now. She is the one I am hiding my face in the pantry from while sneaking a treat.

A less funny and equally convicting one was when my husband sitting on the couch heard Emmy coming around the corner saying “these f****ing socks everywhere. Pick up your crap” clapping her hands with the last sentence. Yes I was not joking in my last post about how much I detest socks lounging around my house. At any rate, this mantra Emmy was muttering was obviously not something a four year old thinks of organically. And if my four year old's potty mouth is any indication of how awful mine has been as of late, I’m ashamed to admit just how bad it’s gotten.

And also, because true to form I drop all sorts of gut wrenching honesty, both my husband and I have become entirely too comfortable using profanity not just around our kids but directed toward them. This will undoubtedly be another post entirely. If you’re judging me, just know there is nothing you are thinking about me that I haven’t already thought about myself. Like what kind of monster curses at a two year old?!? Me. I’m that monster and while I’m not proud of it, I’m also not going to lie about it either. The first step to healing is admitting you have a problem.

In a future post I’ll address how our yelling got started (think sensory overload) what we tried, what definitely didn’t work and where we are at in what I hope will be our progress toward infrequent yelling. To be fair to us as parents, it’s not like I’m spouting off angry curse words for the joy of it. I’m at the point of being pushed beyond reason, and something has to give. Which is usually my filter, my anxiety and my anger.

Yes, yes I wonder regularly if I’m breaking my children beyond the point of return. And often lay in bed at night thinking about what an awful parent I am. And how one day they will be homeless with no self esteem because I yelled to much and called them mean names when in reality they were being jerks but they are also kids. Tanner and I almost daily remind ourselves we have to manage our expectations of our kids. Because they are in fact, children.

Which is sort of like saying you wish your nemesis well, it sounds great and makes you feel like a better person but if they managed to start a multimillion dollar company and have a happily ever after, you’d be a little annoyed at how much well you wished upon them. So when we say we need to manage our expectations, often times we forget we said that and end up a little annoyed that our kids aren’t acting like mature adults this we end up right back at square one. Which is the conversation about needing to manage the expectations.

It’s a cycle....

I digress, See on social media we have the power to sensor ourselves. To only share what makes us look great. To be strategic about just how authentic we are willing to get. But our kids? They are with us all the time.

In fact while trying to wipe my butt yesterday after what had to have been the worlds fastest poop because a fight ensued the M I N U T E my cheeks hit the seat, big tearful six year old eyes came to tattle and watch me wipe my dang butt whilst complaining. The idea of privacy is foreign to them because as mom I must be accessible at all times.

Which brings me back to our kids see and hear everything. Imagine if your kid had the power to go live on your social media whenever you’re losing your mind. Like truly losing it as if no one can hear or see you except your kid. If you’re going to tell me you never yell at your kids, never use harsh words, never reprimand them more aggressively than they probably deserved then I implore you to record yourself one day.

It won’t be pretty.

On the bright-ish side, we all do it.

In the spirit of integrity let’s just admit that at least to ourselves right?

But our kids will rat us out y’all. At school, to grandma and grandpa, or whilst muttering under their breath when they don’t realize dad is listening.

Remember when as a kid we lived in the terror of knowing Santa was watching every December. Y’all, as adults it’s come full circle. Our kids are always watching. And they will dime us out faster than a toddler running away caught with something in their mouth they shouldn’t have!

I really need to watch my potty mouth. My temper and my tendency to sneak chocolate with zero intentions of sharing. Lest the real word find out and think a monster of me.