Someone needs to tell me what on earth is up with kids and their inability to leave the house on time. Ever. You’d think I’d be used to this by now with an 11 and 14 year old…but I’m not. Grow a new gray hair every single time I need to leave the house with one or both of them….and the only solace I get is knowing that pretty much all of the parents I know suffer through this too.
But whyyyy?????
I’m a pretty tough mom in general. Have to be. Single parenting doesn’t give you much room to be weak-willed or wishy-washy. Yet here I am…..with kids who seem like they are swimming through molasses any time we need to go somewhere.
I get it that kids don’t want to get ready and could give a damn about getting to school on time….but this inability to move limbs for any reason whatsoever is crazy.
Getting ready to go swimming at a friend’s house takes just as long as if I said we were off to get teeth extracted at the dentist’s office. Think going to get an ice cream has them at the door and ready? Oh no. Nope. That takes at least 15 minutes of me waiting for them to saunter out from their rooms….and trust me that I live in a house the size of a shoebox.
God forbid they lived in a mansion and had to find their way to the foyer from their corresponding wings….(because yes, if I lived in a mansion they would have bedrooms in separate wings….sibling arguments and rivalry is real AF).
Actually, if I had a mansion I’d also create a boxing ring in the basement somewhere so that they could duke it out every time they felt the need to….which is often….and in the garage, I’d have a car with privacy glass installed in between the seats.
All you parents know what a true pleasure it is to drive with a pair of kids arguing over who looked at who, or worse yet, try and out-talk each other in higher and higher decibels. Ever felt your ears bleed? No?
Then you aren’t a parent.
Ok, I’ve completely digressed…but now have inspiration for a future blog post. Every parent’s dream home….complete with safe room which doubles as a bathroom. Imagine being able to shower and do your business completely uninterrupted? Have mercy.
So…this issue with kids taking FOREVER to get out the front door….what gives? I’m sure there are some perfectly militant methods for ending this behavior. I’m just already pretty strict when it comes to a lot of stuff, so I’d rather not have to to go all Scared Straight on this one.
Since all of my friends are going through the same thing with their kids regardless of their ages….maybe this is just a right of passage? Is this something that our kids will deal with once they have children of their own?…and we will watch from our rockers sipping on whisky sours and laugh and laugh and laugh…oh sweet, sweet karma!
Will we get desperate phone calls from them in the future sounding something like….”Mom, Dad….I don’t know what’s going on with Billy, but he takes half an hour to put one shoe on. I’m late all the time now! What do we do?”….to which we’ll respond…”Oh sweetie, it’s just a phase, don’t worry. Gotta go, Madge is waiting for us to get the Early Bird Special at Sizzlers. Love you, bye!” God, I seriously cannot wait for that moment!!
All I know is that I am so ready to not feel the beginnings of an ulcer or IBS every time I need to leave the house. Somehow, I have managed to get my kids to school, camps, and practices on time every day of their lives…but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t cost me a bit of sanity.
The fact that it takes anyone more than 2 minutes to put on socks is beyond me. That every time the door opens someone decides they need to go to the bathroom “one more time” drives me nuts. How these kids seems to always forget something they simply cannot live without the minute I finally lock the door, is enough to make me covet a lifetime supply of Xanax.
I mean COME ON.
Nobody said parenting was going to be easy……and it sure as hell isn’t. But could someone please have told us how utterly ridiculous it was going to be too?
I guess I’ll be the one to tell you….if you haven’t already become a breeder. Raising kids is ridiculous in ways you cannot possibly imagine. You will do and say and clean up things you cannot even begin to dream of. Your kids will do and say and produce things for you to clean up that defy all sense of logic. And you will be late. A LOT.
header photo by Michelle York @Pexels
