Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.

Tuesday 22 November 2011

Impatient me?! I don't know what you mean...

Okay, honestly now, I have to admit that I may not be the world's most patient person. 

No really...you would never have guessed...how kind of you to say.

Unfortunately at times (well actually quite frequently) I am very impatient, which doesn't bode well as a parent. And to make it worse I really dislike those parents that never complain about their children. The ones that wax lyrical about how wonderful their children are and how every single moment is a joy to behold. Some of them even write blogs about it all (AHEM!). Okay, okay so you have me on that one but I think, in fairness, not all I write is about the joys of parenting. I like to think I give quite a balanced view on being a mother, some of the good, some of the bad and everything inbetween. However what I do not do is live under the illusion that Emily is perfect and never does anything remotely naughty, annoying or just damn right infuriating at times. So yes I do raise my voice and sometimes I even lose my temper. 

It's just that I only have a certain amount of energy and enthusiasm and it is spread extremely thinly at times, particularly the enthusiasm. So I do love my daughter with a love so fierce it scares me BUT If I'm honest I could really do without the following:

  • Having to repeat myself four+ times before Emily will do as I ask (I think it doesn't help that I also have to adopt this same method with her dad too).
  • Having to listen to my daughter repeat herself four+ times, even though I answered her question or request the first time she asked.
  • Over-use of the word 'NO', by both of us actually.
  • Being rudely awaken, every morning, by the sound of my daughter whining and moaning at me to come get here but once in my bed immediately ignoring me in favour of daddy cuddles.
  • Over-use of the word 'CAREFUL'.
  • Over-use of the phrase 'Just a minute Emily'.
  • Over use of the phrases, 'Put that down/back', 'Don't touch that', 'Stop that', 'Please stop that', "Emily I am telling you right now to stop that!'.
  • Constantly falling over my daughter because she is stood just behind me.
  • Constantly walking around with something in my hand, which need binning, cleaning, fixing, tidying away because I am following the trail of destruction that my daughter has left in her wake.
  • That she cannot just eat her food without also having to decorate the room with it.
  • That everything in my life is always about what Emily wants, needs, would prefer, mostly to the exclusion of what I might desperately need sometimes (I think this last one is just called 'being a parent' though)
  •  Ohhh and because she has just engaged in one now as I write...TANTRUMS!

I think if I'm honest I am not just impatient but a little bit of a control freak too which doesn't help. However at least I am honest enough to admit that neither myself or my daughter are perfect but that we still love each other very dearly dispite out imperfections.