Hahahaha! The two-year-old next door is screaming bloody murder (they are outside grilling something for dinner) and we are sitting out here calmly analyzing the situation. The GG asked if I thought she was genuinely upset or “just” being manipulative. I am guessing there is a bit of manipulation involved but I think she is also genuinely upset. This kid is highly capable of using language to verbalize her needs but I think that probably something upset her and she Lost It before she could organize the words to verbalize the problem. Whatever the issue was may not be rational to her parents but it is upsetting enough to her that she cannot calmly pull out the right words. What the heck, sometimes I STILL DO THAT! Do you? (Be honest with yourself.)

OMG! We are sooooo smart now that we are baggy old parents of adult children. If we had only been able to figure that kind of thing when our children were throwing 2-year-old “tantrums” instead of freaking out and doing whatever we thought we needed to do to placate our kid so the neighbors wouldn’t call the police or whatever. We know that Becqet (intentionally misspelled) is well taken care of by her gentle, thoughtful parents. We remember the bad old days when our own beloved beach urchins threw tantrums. And that’s why we’re sitting out here philosophizing and laughing in a commiserative kind of way.

When we had our children we thought we had invented childbirth. We were gonna do it all better. Our kids were gonna sleep through the night and eat their vegetables and yada yada yada. And they did some of that stuff or not or sometimes they did it and sometimes not and if/when was always unpredictable. Like, the kid eats one kind of food (healthy or not) voraciously for a couple weeks (gimme more more more), and then, after you have obtained a lifetime supply of said food, THE KID REFUSES TO EAT IT!

I won’t even get in to the middle school or teen years or even college except to say that my children never gave me one iota of any kind of serious trouble during those years. The arguments could be difficult sometimes but that’s how it goes. I am still working my way through being the parent of independent, successful adults. All I will say is 1) don’t give unsolicited advice (although I sometimes do) or 2) kext (although I sometimes do) or 3) EXCESSIVELY tag your children on social media or even “like” their posts. I get away with that last only because my kids only post things that are safe for mooma to “like” or whatever.

P.S. Thanks to Lizard Breath for the Radical Mother banner. I love it! <3

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