by Kelli Bowen
I was the kid who was chock-full of sarcasm and comebacks. I had a chip on my shoulder and attitude to spare. Basically I was the younger version of, well, me. In a cruel twist of fate: I am now raising myself.
Miss E, all of 8 years old, has perfected the scowl, can justify everything, is uniquely creative, a perfectionist, an antagonist, and always needs to get the last word in.
Send drinks. Hubby and I have a long decade ahead of us trying to mold this mini human into a contributing member of society. She also has the biggest heart and is a through-and-through animal lover. She loves reading and playing board games and has many other wonderful, beautiful, heart-stoppingly-fabulous qualities, but those qualities do not rise to the top when we are in the thick of it…like the fight over asparagus.
I picked up some asparagus in bulk, because my favorite store sells everything in bulk. I made chicken cordon bleu and asparagus for dinner (amazing right?!?). Guess who wasn’t impressed? Miss E. She likes chicken cordon bleu, but those little delicious spears of inducing-kid-anger mocked her from her plate.
“I don’t like those.” She said. I told her she can try them. They are good. Hubby told her the thin end is better than the fat end, so start with the little ends. I had already cut them up so we were over that hurdle.
“But I don’t want them!” she said while trying to push her plate away with her eyes. I told her to just try a bite, then she can tell me she doesn’t like the asparagus, but she cannot know she doesn’t like it if she hasn’t tried it.
This back and forth continued for several minutes with both Hubby and me getting more and more annoyed and less and less patient. Meanwhile Miss A brought out her little-sister-halo-of virtue and showed us how good of an eater she can be while saying things like, “Thank you for making dinner Mommy.” Bite. “You’re the best Mommy ever.” Bite. “You know it isn’t even bad, plus you can plug your nose so you don’t taste it if you don’t like it.” Insert eyelash batting and angelic smile…making her older sister fume more.
“I’m not going to eat this!” The whine of a thousand whiners emitted from my 8-year old and burnt my mom ears. I’ve gotta take a break. I went in the bedroom so I didn’t lose it on my kid. Three…two…one…Hubby raises his voice. Okay, tag back in, Mom.
“Either you eat ONE bite of asparagus, or you go to bed!” At this point Miss E’s bones melted into some gelatinous form and she slunk into the chair and continued whining with the force of 38 nails on a chalkboard. That’s it. Mom’s done.
“I’m going to count to 5, and either you have a piece of asparagus in your mouth or you’re getting one day without friends.” The paper and pen are out. This is serious business now. Time without friends is the steepest of punishments. At this point I blacked out in mom-rage, but as Hubby tells it, Miss E and I were locked in a battle of bull-headedness a la Breakfast Club, where I was basically saying ‘How about another?’ to which she would have responded ‘Eat my shorts’ if she had the mental video comeback library her mother has. This ultimately ended with me hashtagging the sheet of days grounded, like it was my job.
Then there was more battling, raised voices, and epic mind-numbing whining. Miss E ended up in her bedroom. The all-powerful, “I hate you” was brought out, which my mom would have slapped my face off my body had I used that in my youth, but I went to the only resource I had left: Google.
I took a piece of advice that the search engine cranked out and went down and sat…quietly…in a chair outside of Miss E’s room and invited her to join me. The bawling turned to whining to wimpering to sniffling and each downgrade of emotion, she took one more step toward me until she was sitting in my lap.
We sat and rocked, wrapped up in the biggest of soft blankets and let the tension melt away. Then I said there are two things that always make me feel better: sleep or a shower. She opted for the latter and came out 30 minutes later and apologized for how she acted. I apologized. We talked about what we could both do better next time and then she went off to bed.
If you ever find yourself in a battle with yourself, remember sleep and a shower fix about everything…or just eat the friggin’ asparagus.
Kelli makes her home in Cass County with her husband, two daughters (8 and 5) and two dogs. She works for a regional seed company by day and tries to be an alright mom, wife, friend and writer by night.
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