If I'm Like This Now...

what will I be like when Natalie is a teenager?

God help us both. Seriously.

Over the past two weekends, I scoured both big kids' rooms. Cleaned, wiped down, organized, the works. They looked gorgeous. This weekend, it looks like I did nothing.

NOTHING.

Oh no way, NUH-UH.

Momma's not having it.

So, I sauntered down, stepped in front of the TV and informed them that they could go upstairs and clean up their messes or I'd go up with a trash bag marked "Goodwill." No word strikes fear in my little hoarder's heart like "Goodwill" does so with nothing more than a perfunctory complaint, Jack was off like a flash to put away all of those motherfucking legos and tinker toys that Santa brought.

Let me take a minute to express my hatred for Legos. I HATE LEGOS. Especially when they are embedded in my heel at 3:00 a.m. when I check on him and I can't scream in rage and pain because it might wake the baby.

Back on topic now. Right, so he goes up to tackle his mess while Natalie sighs and announces, "WELL. Someone has to help me because I can't do it myself."

(How can she make "Well." into a sentence that speaks volumes? It's amazing. Horrible and amazing. I'm sure my mother must have thought the same thing because come to think of it, I do the same thing.)

I shoot back, "WELL. You made the mess yourself and now you need to clean it up yourself."

Hand on hip and eyes rolling, she says, "I CAN'T. It's TOO MUCH. I need HELP!!!"

No way I'm backing down on this one. If I help at the outset, I'm guaranteed to be finishing the job by myself and that is nowhere near okay. "Natalie, GET UP THERE AND GET STARTED. NOW. Your friends are coming over on Tuesday and if you don't clean up, I'm calling their moms and telling them that it's cancelled."

With that, she spins on her heel, stomps up the steps and shouts into Jack's room as she passes, "I AM SO MAD AT MOMMY!!!!"

Jack looks out the door and down the steps fearfully. He knows me well enough to know that I'm going to lose my shit right then and there.

Smart boy, my son.

I storm up the stairs behind her and hiss, "Don't you DARE yell and stomp like that when your sister is asleep!"

My tone would have left Jack a weeping mess. Not The Madam. What does she do?

Slams the door in my face.

Slams.

The.

Door.

IN.

MY.

FACE.

I whipped that door open so fast it almost came off the hinges, wheeled her around and so close to her face that she could count my pores, I screamed, "Don't you EVER EVER talk about me like that again and DON'T YOU EVER SLAM THE DOOR WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU!!!"

And then I slammed the door.

Because apparently my unspoken motto today is "Do as I say, not as I do."

*sigh* I didn't even make sense b/c she wasn't actually talking about me. It's not like she told Jack I was a dumb bitch or something. She simple expressed her anger at me -- loudly -- to her brother. But she knows that she is supposed to be quiet when Bonnie is sleeping, she knows that stomping is unacceptable in general and she knows, above all, that she is responsible for her toys and the messes she creates with them.

Nobody makes me fly off the handle like that girl does. It's amazing how quickly she can send me from Zen to this:

I really lost my cool today. I don't know why. Maybe it's where I am in my cycle. Maybe it's the weather. Maybe I'm out of practice with remaining calm in the face of her theatrics since she has been so mellow and mature lately. Maybe I'm the one who needs a time out. Whatever the reason, it's not okay to scream like a rabid howler monkey -- for her OR for me-- and I will tell her that when I am calm enough to see her without my palms itching to smack her.

As I typed the last line, she came down and stood behind me. When I turned the chair around, she hung her head and whispered, "Sorry, Mommy."

I think she was. I don't want to think she is a complete sociopath who is only apologizing because she knows it's the socially acceptable response to parental rage. I have to believe that her conscience is strong.

I hugged her and asked her if she'd cleaned up her room.

Thumb in mouth and Taggie in hand, she looked up at me with those big blue eyes still swimming in tears and guffawed, "NO. I still need help!"

It's amazing that I haven't killed her. I swear, it's a miracle.