Great green meanie

Why does mommy always have to be the 'tough guy?' The police officer, the law enforcement, the mean guy, the punishment provider? I mean, here I am, before even punishments can be doled out, feeling like the bad guy.

I'm talking about being firm and 'training' the kids not to play me. I'm talking about being the only one who can resist a temper tantrum thrower until they're done. Somehow, I end up feeling like the mean mommy seeing as how I won't let Grandma pick the screaming fit thrower up and Grandpa has already left the room.

Not to mention that I have the least patience in any situation where whining, fussing, sobbing, squealing or angry yelling is going on. Yes, I know, it's easier to be patient when you get to go home at the end of the day, but its only just beginning!

So it seems to carry on, this age old tradition of mom being the bad guy who metes out the punishment or the mean rules that don't allow you to pick up my wailing child. I guess it's really because we can read them so well. I know perfectly well the difference between a tantrum and real upset. I am perfectly comfortable sitting with them during the tantrum but there will be no comforting, patting, picking up, entertaining, or sweet talk. These kids gotta work it out themselves and they had better catch on quick that momma ain't buying that basket of goods. But why do I feel so mean?

oooh that little....

So there I am, 2am wake up again. Kids are getting sick. The boys are coughing their lungs out, noses running at a fast pace and we begin. The least sick kid, A, is waking every 20 min. At first I am sympathetic. I mean her brothers are coughing, so how can she sleep? I go in, I pat her, tuck her in, stroke her head. Worry a little because she usually cries the most the night before she gets sick so I know what's coming right?

Meanwhile, because my children are annoying, B has decided that every time I come into the room it must be for him. Even though his sister is the one screaming, it's him I must have come running to pat, right? So since I dare to go to her first he starts in. Whining, standing up, rattling his cage, fussing, and eventually, screaming. Sigh. So I get her settled and step over to settle him down. No sooner do I step away but her head pops up. I step back over to her crib and gently (or maybe not so gently) place her head back onto the mattress. B pops up and starts fussing again. I mean really? Am I supposed to stay calm and rational at this moment? Do you two really not realize that you are one of three yet? I will pat whichever of you needs it most at whatever time and you are to keep your little head down on your mattress and zip it!

So it carries on like this until I leave the room, hoping I've settled each somewhat enough. 20 minutes later, I'm back on it. A starts screaming her fool head off and I return. I check her all over for leaky diaper, poop, broken parts, scorpions, you name it. Nothing. Wrong. Fine, I still feel sorry for her because seemingly, even though when I stand over B he does not cough, the minute I leave the room his coughing starts up again. I'd venture to guess 'someone' is sitting up when I leave the room but since I'm not allowed to tie him to his mattress, so it will be.

From 2-4am I play this every 20 minutes game. I am patient, no? But you know what? I'm done. At 4 I am physically done, mentally finished and overall going to kill a child if I step back in that nursery again before morning officially begins so I hear her screaming like she's being skinned alive but I wait. She calms down on her own, I begin to drift off thinking maybe it's all over. Oh, there she goes again. She's winding up for the scream when B says 'da' to her. That's triplet speak for "I'm awake too, wanna play?" Or so I think I've translated. So here's what it sounds like:

"Aaaaaaahhh..." "da" "Aaaahhh, DA DA, Auuuuuggghhhaaaaauughghwahaaaaaahhh!"

I kid you not. She paused in her scream to respond to B happily and calmly, "da da" being triplet speak for "I'm up for playing!" only to return to her screaming now that that business was out of the way. I can not repeat here the words that came out of my mouth when I heard this. If that girl thinks I'm stupid enough to hear her talking with her brother about playing and still think she's dying of some unknown condition at 4am? That little girl is wrong. That little girl is such a faker! I can tell you, however, that I did NOT get out of bed again. And you know what? She was alive in the morning. Probably a better result than she deserved.

In contemplation of the noble tantrum

What is the evolutionary principle behind tantrums? Can you imagine, just imagine, cave mamma Ugg with child #1 standing just outside cave mouth #43 on Cave Mouth Street grinding corn or preparing to go out and gather and little cave kid Ugg Jr throws himself to the ground and pounds his tiny fists and kicks his tiny legs and screams like a bear to get what he wants? Do you suppose she rolls her cavelady eyes and hands it to him? Because I don't. I see cave mamma taking her club out and giving him a good whack.

Imagine, again, Mayan momma standing in the hot sun after harvesting corn (oh I'm not an indigenous tribe specialist get off my back) watching Mayan girl baby screaming to be allowed to play with that last ear of corn, because it had become her toy, and not giving it to Mayan momma immediately upon being asked. Do you think she might be tempting the Mayan god to select her for the heart sacrifice? I think I'd tread a bit more carefully if I were that kid.

And imagine, if you will, prairie settler family Miller just put prairie kid Joseph to bed and he throws a tantrum to the point of barfing on his bedcovers. Do you think that in an era of no washing machines and no multiple sheet sets he was allowed to do this time and time again for no apparent reason and not end up sleeping amidst his barf particles? I think not. I think he'd be washing his own sheets pretty soon in the river with bloody knuckles of his own. I think he'd learn pretty stinking fast not to barf in his bed. His mom wouldn't be running with his barfing self out of the nursery to try to stop the inevitable sheet change one stinking time. I don't think so. Heck, he'd be lucky to have a bed. And if he barfed in mom and pop's bed? I think he'd be hoeing a row of crops before he was 2.

I mean how did tantrums achieve anything until the current parental administration where we overindulge such children? In the last, what, 50 years there's been a sea change from children being a necessary production of help mates for the household to children being our entire reason for the sun coming up in the morning and goodness knows you better not wake/upset/scold/deny/deprive them. So I see how it's evolutionarily useful now. It works like a charm to lay your tiny little body down in the middle of a packed grocery store and go to town with tears and snot because you bet your mom is going to scoop your butt up and get you anything to shut you up so she can finish shopping because this is the one stupid chance she gets all week to get groceries and if she can't now you'll all starve.

Well not this mom. That kid and I will either be standing there annoying the rest of you until he's done with his theatrics or we leave and we starve. I know it looks bad to the other judging eyes and I've been them too, but you know once you're the parent that the difference between a tantrum and a true cry is so obvious to you at some point early on in getting to know this kid that you can not allow yourself to indulge the former. Because that only means more in the future. And those judging eyes? They can go have triplets of their own and then judge me. Well, maybe not even then. Because this is my kid, and for some unexplainable reason tantrums are there in the animal brain, even though I'm pretty sure that our ancestor apes used them to better effect and they should have been extinguished as a useful strategy somewhere around the 1300s, BC, and there is NOTHING. I. CAN. DO. ABOUT. IT. So smile sweetly and move on rubberneckers. Nothing to see here.