Now that Junior is growing up, I miss having a little one
running around the house.
Now that Junior is growing up, I miss having a little one running around the house. Well, I don’t miss it enough to actually have a little one – just in case my husband is reading this and had an immediate heart attack. Yes, dear, I do remember our agreement. But I do miss the one wonderful thing that you do with little kids that big kids won’t do. And no, it’s not changing diapers. That whole potty training thing is just as terrific as it sounds.
Instead what I miss is distractibility. Little kids are infinitely easier to distract than big kids. Take a toddler for example. A toddler wanders through the house, looking for electrical outlets to stick his finger in. All you have to do is plug up the outlets and voila! The fingers go up the nose instead of in the outlet. And if that grosses you out, you can distract that behavior too. I’m telling you, life with a toddler is all about distractions.
Even a naughty toddler can be distracted. I learned about this in parenting class, because I had a naughty toddler. And in the parenting class, we learned about the benefits of distracting your child from naughty stuff. We also learned about time outs, which are helpful for the really naughty toddlers. Which is also what I had. And I have to say, that class was right on. I distracted the heck out of Junior when he was a toddler. It was great. See an electrical outlet? Shove his finger up his nose. See a dangerous cliff he could fall off? Find a small tree he could climb.
You can see where I’m going with this. I became the master of distraction. I could distract any kid, anywhere. I had songs to sing, pencils and paper in my purse for drawing future refrigerator masterpieces, noses that needed picking (no, not mine). Heck, I was so good at it that people starting asking me for distracting techniques. I could distract a small child from anything. I could even distract a toddler from throwing a fit while waiting 45 minutes in line at Disneyland for the Peter Pan ride. Yes, I was THAT good.
And then my easily distracted, naughty toddler morphed into an elementary school-aged child. And that’s when things got a little rough. Granted, he wouldn’t stick his finger in the outlet, but you can guess what happened the day he found a screwdriver and an uncovered outlet, can’t you? Let’s just say that sparks flew that day and they weren’t all from mommy freaking out.
But I managed. I just had different distractions, thanks to Game Boy and PSP. I never went anywhere without them. One of them was always fully charged and in my purse. And we made it through elementary school without the house burning down and mommy going full-on crazy.
And then he got to middle school. Here’s a note to all parents of future middle schoolers. Something happens to your child between fifth and sixth grade that defies all the rules of logic. Not only does your child grow taller over summer, he or she also suddenly develops a smart mouth, a smart attitude and an extreme aversion to being distracted by anything you do.
I cannot stress enough how much this stinks.
A middle school child will not be distracted no matter how much you try. Once a child of this age has a goal in mind – other than straight A’s, of course – he will not under any circumstances be dissuaded from reaching said goal. It’s the curse of motherhood, I’m telling you. I’ve tried everything. I’ve tried Game Boy and PSP. I’ve even tried encouraging a good old nose picking. Nothing works. I even tried allowing him to play with my cell phone – which has icons to rearrange and the Internet to surf and music to play. No dice.
And that’s why I’m longing for the good old days. When all I had was a naughty toddler, a purse full of junk, a child who was easily distracted and a fridge covered in masterpieces.
