I don’t know if we’ll make it through today.

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Here are two tasty little morsels from today, which has been a never-ending stream of the same.

M: Do you want to pull the laundry basket?

P: No. [walks off and up the stairs.]

M: Are you sure you don’t want to help?

P: No! Peanut no want pull laundry!

M: [whatever, fine by me] Okay. [starts pulling basket and gets to bottom of stairs.]

P: [loses it, crying and stomping] Peanut want do it!

M: [not sure what just happened] Okay…

P: No Mommy do it! Peanut want do it!

M: I just said okay. Go ahead. You do it.

P: [Stomps down stairs, grabs basket, wheels it ten feet back toward the laundry room, turns, and wheels it back.]

M: Thank you.

P: Mommy no say thank you. [mounting stairs] Mommy no come up stairs. Laundry no come up stairs.

M: Mommy and laundry need to come upstairs.

P: NO!

……

P: [in stroller, on our morning run] Peanut want that playground.

M: [always fine with stopping the run midway] Okay. [stops the stroller]

P: [screaming] Peanut no want this playground!

M: [befuddled but also endorphined] Okay. We’ll run to a different playground.

P: Peanut no want different playground! Peanut want this playground!

M: [rethinking career choice] Okay. [goes to unbuckle seat belt]

P: [hitting M’s hand] No! Peanut no get out!

M: How will you play if you won’t get out?

P: Peanut no play! Peanut no get out. Peanut not ANY!

M: Should I keep running?

P: Mommy no run.

M: Your choices are playground or Mommy running.

P: Not any. Peanut want different playground.

Sweet Mary, mother of my cousins, I’m gonna chuck this kid out with the next bathwater we can successfully get him into.

See what I’ve become? that should have read “into which we can successfully get him.” Know what? Mommy no care. Mommy want to send Little Mister Struggle For Independence to live with the Doctors Sears. They won’t notice another kid, and they are less likely to try to safe surrender him to the fire department than I am.

5 thoughts on “I don’t know if we’ll make it through today.”

  1. Oh my! I have so BTDT. And I am so not looking forward to it with #2 (her time will be coming soon I’m sure).

    I think it is a stage where they are testing out whether it is okay to change your mind or not. I think mine learned the phrase “it’s too late” as part of that stage (i.e. me telling him sometimes that it was too late to change his mind, like when I finished eating his granola bar because he didn’t want any more). And now he always tells me that it is “too late” when I ask him to do things (i.e. too late to clean up his toys because he is now busy reading).

  2. Oh, that’s funny…perfectly described. Go, you!

    Mine is all “Me no like it” right now, too. If we keep going long enough, most of the time he’ll switch into “I want it” mode. But keeping my patience while he has his little patch of I Don’t Want To Do Anything Anyone Else Tells Me takes major endurance. (Then I always feel this absurd surge of joyfulness when he DOES get around to the acceptance phase.)

  3. I know how you feel. Nights after a day like that, where you can’t wait for bed time and want to knock back a couple of drinks. And I’m not even a drinker.

    May you have better days! :-)

  4. My favorite part: Peanut not ANY!

    Amazing how hilarious it all sounds when we read about it, but how very torturing it is when it is happening to us.

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