Stop climbing my Patience Tree!

Lets be real here folks. Parenting is hard. It would be so much easier to just give in to the request for extra ice cream, a movie past bedtime, only sweet potato fries for dinner, and so on. If I could just sit back and let my 3yo barracuda run the house (and the world) and know that she would just inately know how do this all in a diplomatic, sensitive, creative and respectful way, I would. Unfortunately she doesn't yet understand that if you don't eat dinner, you don't get dessert, and if you don't listen and follow instructions, you don't get to just cry and have your way anyway. There are moments where the Barracuda's listening ears are on (and times I wish they weren't when they are!) and I appreciate these milestones more than my morning coffee. I know she is getting it. I know it is a slow process. And she is only 3. All of this I know. But since we are being real, at the end of a long weekend, when everyone is tired, there is still dinner to be made, baths to be had, clothes to be laid out, lunches to be made, dogs to be fed and laundry to be put away -- my "patience tree" has a short trunk. And the next person to try and scramble up that trunk and swing from my branches is going to hear about it. I take time outs. I take long HOT showers. I enjoy a barracuda snuggle while indulging in Coraline or Rio. I remind myself that we are both learning. Me how to parent, and her how to do most everything. =)

It all balances out. Somedays are heavier on the reminders to "chew with your mouth closed please", "don't throw rocks in the pond please", or "crayons are for paper not the table" ... and somedays are laden with imaginary friends, worm hunts, hopscotch, gardening and hiding kisses in our pockets.

What it all boils down to is that learning is hard. Parenting is hard. Being a kid is hard. Understanding why things are the way they are, and explaining why, is hard. But as each day goes by, and some hurdles are leapt over, and others are crashed into -- lessons are learned. On both ends. And each morning we get up and start again. With a hug and a snuggle and likely a barracuda swinging from a tree limb.