The Goalposts got moved

Caps for Sale

I have written about my youngest daughters rejection of me here concerning clothes.  And then my test of patience with her HERE.  But in actuality I was getting better with her.  I truly was becoming more patient with her.  And maybe she was becoming "OK" with me.  I realized that she liked Mommy better but hey, I'm cool with that.  I know Mommy has to give her a bath or shower, I am cool with that too.  I think it was the test I had with my Mother in law.  She nearly broke me.  In fact my test of patience did not get a passing grade with her and I have only seen her once, at Christmas, in the last six months, though on my honor I am ready to do the garden thing again once the planting season starts in March. And.... well.... I will try my damnedest to um... um... oh yeah, be patient with my Mother in law.

So I am getting better all the time... at some things.  Look, me and the youngest did a 1000 piece Disney Mickey Mouse puzzle together.  Talk about bonding.    We took an exercise class the past two years where I had to exercise with her.  That should have made us the best of buds.

I thought the terrible twos, "I like one parent (Mommy) better than the other parent (Daddy)", would have finished by the time she was 4.

Sadly mistaken.

So what happens?  My youngest daughter moves the goalposts and makes it that much harder for me to stay patient with her.  Do you want to hear how she has further bloodied and battered my ego and patience skills?  This is where you say `yes` because I am going to tell you no matter what.

Before I wasn't allowed to dress or bathe her.  It was hell trying to brush her teeth.  Now, she dresses herself, and she is so proud of that that she comes running out after she is dressed and yells, "I'm dressed" to let the whole apartment building know.   Now she stands (relatively) still while I brush her teeth, twice a day!  We have moved on, which means now she cries about other things she doesn't like me doing.

 She knows darned well that her parents take turns taking each girl to school.  We  trade off,for instance I take one girl one day and then the other the next day.  She knows that.  But what does she do after her Mother has left taking her sister to school?  She sits there and cries in the hallway for ten minutes.  She cries the whole time she or I are trying to get her winter clothes on, which makes us late in leaving.  I hate getting to her pre school late, the teacher always yells at me.  And ITS NOT MY FAULT.

So after she has cried for Mommy for fifteen minutes, the only way to calm her down is to promise to carry her to pre school.  Its getting late so I have to carry her anyway to get her to school faster.  Its just down the street, up the hill and up the stairs.  Here below is the hill I have to carry her up on my shoulders.

                                              And then up the stairs to the school

Mother Theresa wouldn't have been so magnanimous to carry her.  I m her father so I have to.  Otherwise she would either just sit down on the street or we would be late and I would get scolded by the teacher.  I might as well die a martyr right now.

I m not a drinker like some other Fathers I know, instead I feel like crying the whole walk back home.  Luckily its downhill.  My patience is gone.   I lost it somewhere crossing the street.  I guess it got run over by a car,  or a mountain goat.  

And now she has a new game.  I am not allowed to touch her bed.  She screams for ten minutes in the evening if she sees that I made her bed in the morning.  So I have to leave it a mess, which is not in my nature to do.  Oh why couldn't she be simpler like her older sister.  The second Born's are always more hellish.

Now if I even go near her bed in the evening she starts hitting me.  She takes ten minutes to straighten it out after we turn out the lights.  One night she started screaming at me for what reason I don't know.  I was standing next to their bunk bed and singing to her older sister who sleeps on the top bunk.

 "What what what?  What I d do?"

  It turns out I was standing too close to her bunk and was upsetting the aura around her bed.  It caused her great mental anguish and she started hitting me in the legs.    

Excuse me while I just go kill myself right now.

Listened to this while writing