Is It Naptime Yet

Now I love my mom, but this post is just an observation of things she does and the fact is I do some of them already to a degree.

I’m the youngest of six kids. At one point we even had a dog. When my mom would get mad at us she would spout off all six names and some times even the dog’s name. They wouldn’t be in any specific order. In fact had they been in order she would have been able to get to the older kids names faster, but for whatever reason she would still go through half to all our names every time. We’d say something smart and then it would be Scott, Carolyn, Glenn, Kristi, Andrea, Peggy..LACEY. We always teased her about it afterwards, in which she’d remember our name and get it the first time at that point, but even then not always if it was more that one of us teasing her about it.
I see myself doing the same thing with my two kids, only I don’t call off both names. I get it wrong and then I say, “whatever child you are…..” My husband doesn’t like this approach. He says I know which child I’m talking to and I should call her by name, even if I get it wrong the first time and am frustrated. Maybe when I get mad at him and can’t decide whether to call him, Daddy, Jon or Jonathan, I should call him “whatever husband you are.” That’ll get my neighbors thinking, especially if they know we’re Mormon.

Now that I’m an adult my mom and I have different conversations. I always find it funny talking to my mom about what she taught us kids. I know she taught us a lot, but I think she forgets that there is a vast age difference between us kids, so what she taught one teenager may not have sunk into her 5 or 7 year old. She tells me about things that she taught us kids when we were young, or teenagers. Like she says she talked to us about sex. So I’m 6 years younger than my eldest sister. If she talked to Andrea about sex when she was 11 or 12, I was 5 or 6. I don’t really remember those conversations. Or my mom tells me how she tried to teach an older child how to do something, like sewing. They didn’t want to learn how to sew and the next child didn’t want to learn and the next child didn’t want to learn so by the time she got to me she was tired of trying to teach, so I never learned anything. She figured all the other ones were so stubborn so why try with the last one or two.

I wonder if I’ll be that way with my kids. In some ways I see it already. With Lilah we were very careful to make sure she always used her spoon, with Eden not so much. We’re happy if she just tries to use it. So I get some mornings where applesauce has been eaten by both hands instead of a spoon and is all over the high chair. Or teaching Lilah to clean up. She was the only one who made the mess so we always made sure she cleaned at least half when she was Eden’s age, or 20 months. Now I’m just happy to get Eden to pick up one or two thing some nights. I find myself cleaning after them more because it’s easier then getting them to clean it up themselves.
The weariness of teaching begins.