Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Bounty of Patience


My biggest fear of motherhood came when I was pregnant with Maegan. I kept seeing a Bounty commercial of a kid racing through the kitchen, grabbing a huge carton of juice, and then spilling it all over the floor. The mom, looking a little amused, tufts the kid's hair, grabs her Bounty, and wipes it up with a smile. What?!! I'm supposed to respond like that! Where is the lecture, what about a little look of frustration! Can I really be that mom?
For the last two days I've been trying to catch up on laundry and ironing (because I leave it too long in the dryer). Plus, as you know, when you're home with two kids you are constantly picking up. At 7:00pm last night, Maegan and Spencer were playing so nicely while I cleaned up from dinner. Low and behold Maegan had drug half her wardrobe, some of mine, my cell phone, all the pillows in the house, and etc, and stuffed it all behind the big chair, the area where I never clean. She also took piles of clean laundry off my bed and tossed them to the floor, in pursuit of my bedding. Oooooooo, I was so mad. I wanted her to know I was mad, but I couldn't figure that best 'good mother' way to do that. So I grabbed my head and said with as much calm, laced with fury, that I could. "I'm on fire, my head is going to explode, I'm sooooo mad!" I tried to explain all the work I'd done to clean, nicely fold, and put all this stuff away. Now, dear child, all my work is lopping around in a big pile of dust. I went on to say that this was the highest disrespect for all my hard work.
I think the explanation at least made me feel better. So, the rest of the evening entailed me following Maegan around making her put it all away.
Maybe next time I can ruffle her hair and smile at her creativity.

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