I am a 38yo wife, mother, friend & sister. I have been married for 17 years, and I have two children: Music (formerly Karate Kid) my 14yo son, and Drama Queen, my 12yo daughter.
It is amazing how two children born from the same set of parents and raised in the same household can be so completely different. For example:
Karate Kid: Does not require much sleep Drama Queen: Needs about 11 or 12 hours of sleep
KK: Is the pickiest eater ever and subsists on mostly junk. DQ: Will try just about anything, and loves eating healthy foods.
KK: Puts on whatever clothes his hand touches first. He will never, ever change for the rest of the day, no matter what the temperature or the style of clothes. DQ: Finds a favorite outfit and tries to wear it every day. When forced to wear something different, goes through 7 different outfits, finds one to wear part of the day, and then changes as soon as she is home.
KK: Loves, loves, loves to read DQ: Reads only when forced
KK: Tells way more than any person should ever know about our family DQ: Won't even say "Hi" without prompting and sometimes the threat of bodily harm
KK: Quit playing with his toys about 3 years ago when it finally dawned on him that if he didn't get them out, he didn't have to clean them up. His room is picked up almost all of the time. DQ: To walk across her room, one needs a shovel and/or a pick axe, a miner's helmet with the requisite mounted flashlight, and a tetanus shot.
Sometimes I am at a loss as to how to parents these two vastly different beings. Karate Kid and I are so much alike. We can have a great time together. However, since we both think we're the boss, we also have some huge, huge fights. We are both Type A personalities, walking 90mph and in a perpetual hurry.
Drama Queen is my laid back child. When she's not throwing one of her zillion fits because some piece of clothing doesn't feel right or I'm being the meanest mom ever, or...the list goes on and on. Talking to her makes me want to pull my hair out. It takes 20 minutes to have a 5 sentence conversation. And heaven help us if something else catches her attention (as it frequently does). She's an "Oooh, Shiny" kind of person. There's no hope of every finishing the conversation because she has no idea what was being discussed. She's also hopelessly slow, yet freaks about being late. I've learned to get her started earlier than her brother just so we have a chance of walking out the door at the same time.
We're complete opposites, but it works so well sometimes. She's giving and kind, I'm selfish and gruff. I miss out on a lot of things because I'm hurrying my way through life, she notices each and every detail and helps me enjoy the things I otherwise never would have seen. But we do have one area where we are alike: we are both shy. I can completely relate when she is scared to talk to someone new. She most definitely comes by it naturally.
So what to do about being the best parent I can be to the two best children ever? The only thing I know how to do: pray. Hard.
Posted @
9:50 AM ~
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