Temper Tantrum

Bloggers are such weird people. I did not have a chance to read some of the Mother's Day posts that they did, so I am playing catch up. It's the story of my life. I should be done just in time to be behind for Father's Day. Some of them are so freakin' funny it makes me ashamed to put pixel to display, but WTF, blogging is such fun. I was at Phat Mama's blog and she had a post about Mother's Day that just made my day. It reminded why I am SOOOO glad that I am done with the little kid stage of life.

I think all new mommys should be required to start a blog to help them combat the insanity that comes with raising tyrannical little dictators that children become when they hit about 18 months. I know, like a mommy has time to blog. I remember when the Hot Tamale was a baby, still young enough to be immobile. I figured how hard could it be to clean the 3 x 3 foot square feet of linoleum that was between the garage door and into the kitchen. So small. Piece of cake. Forty five friggin' minutes later that floor was still dirty, the water in the bucket was now cold, and I considered myself a failure. Pick up the sponge...oops, baby spits up. Dip sponge back in bucket...oops, baby does a giant doody. Apply sponge to floor....oops, baby giggles and now I have to play with her.

It is all so funny now but at the time I thought of myself as a total doofus. At least with a blog, I would have been a doofus with a blog and place to post the funny pictures of my daughter cleaning her new shoes in the toilet trying to be helpful..or a picture of the time she took about 25 coffee filters, put a graham cracker in each one, and then gave a nice squirt of maple syrup to each one. Where was mommy? Talking on the phone, of course, happy that Hot Tamale was being so good. I felt terrible with that one because when she saw my face she tried to scurry away, slipped on the sticky syrupy floor and gave herself a black eye. Needless to say, I did not leave the house for days. Some Texan might have popped me one.

But the hardest I think I have laughed at my kids, yes, you heard me, laughed AT my kids was with Teddy Bear. We had moved to Moreno Valley by that time into our brand new house. She had her own plastic table in the family room to watch cartoons and play. She had to have been about 18 months or so. Not quite verbal but certainly vocal...and loud. I must not have been moving my arse fast enough for her to bring her Cheerios and applesauce, so she started to pitch a hissy fit. My patience level at that time was probably a nanosecond in length, so I got a little cranky and told her to calm down or there would be no Cheerios and certainly no cartoons. Oh, lordy. Teddy Bear at that age was a perpetual looking wild child--great big gray eyes, wild ass red hair, and always dirty little cheeks. She screws up her face, squinches her eyes shut and opens her mouth to scream.

To this day, I don't know why, but I had absolutely no reaction to this. It was actually kind of entertaining because it was so obviously not real tears. It was like watching very bad cheesy acting. That ticked her off. She really starts to wail, starts flailing her arms and stomping her feet. I start to giggle out loud now. She looks at me in absolute horror. How is this not working? She then proceeds to throw herself onto the floor, banging her fists on the floor, her arms pumping up and down, kicks her feet and is screaming at the top of her lungs. Now, I am beside myself I am laughing so hard. She looks up in astonishment, sits up, gets to her feet, glares at me (no longer crying, of course), and stomps off to her room, which, of course, sends me into hysterics. I hear her little feet in her footy pajamas stomping down the hallway and she SLAMS the door~! Oh my, god. How I made it to the bathroom before I peed myself I will never know.

But she never threw another tantrum again.