Teaching a toddler about respecting personal space is like trying to teaching a dog calculus. Sure, it sounds fun to spend hours upon hours upon hours upon hours explaining the theory but in the end, we all know that they just want a cookie. And until they get that cookie, the dog or the child, someone is going to have a lap buddy constantly looking at them with big baby eyes and whining. Occasionally, you might also get peed on.
Normally I am ok with the personal space thing when it comes to my children. I understand that they need the comfort of Dad's rock hard guns to make them feel secure from the world. This doesn't go for the rest of you though. Give me a hug and I'm probably going to punch you. I can't help it, I'm not that into physical contact. Just not my style. I live in the Midwest. For the most part, I'm surrounded by miles and miles of fields. Sweet, sweet fields that are filled with quiet and no 3 year old with a baseball bat whose natural swing is right at the height of your balls.
But with Hossmom once again gone for work, I'm rocking the single parent thing again. This time she is headed to Boston to fuck with some smaht kids. By the way, I can't take credit for that joke, that was her facebook update. She has no ability to tell a good story but can bring you to your knees in 140 characters or less.
So I'm alone with kids and the lack of personal space is starting to get to me. At bathtime I turned around and knocked my son on the ground. I took up no additional space when I moved but he was so close to me that he got a hip check to the head. The kids are just always so interested in what you are doing. I was turning on the bath water. For some reason, that activity rated right up there with fireworks so that they both had to run for a closer view. This may imply that I don't bath my kids enough, which is probably true. But if they would just stop running from the hose they would get pretty clean. We practice what we call "prison bathing" in this house. I throw lye on them.
It's days like this that I reach my true limit. Not just my patience limit, but my space limit. I just want to go into the backyard and lay down. And although I will be surrounded by dog turds, they won't be touching me, pawing me, trying to get the best view of the bathwater. It's just water guys, we literally see this everyday, what's the big deal?
The big deal of course is that Dad is there and Dad is doing something. It comes from me being the center of their universe and I can understand that. It's how I got Hossmom to marry me. I just kept bugging her, pawing at her and occasionally hitting her in the crotch. Then she said let's get married. Bam, a love story you can tell you children.
I just have to remind myself that it comes from a place of love and need. I have to remind myself even more when I start wanting to shove like I'm in a crowd of zombies that crave my brains and bathwater. That's why zombies are always so pissed: they're dirty.
My kids like to squish their face(s) into mine until I can taste their boogers. It's a game.
ReplyDeleteI say, "Can I help you with something?" They say, "No."
I say, "have you ever heard of a little thing called personal space?" They say, "Yes."
Then they don't move.
S' a fun game.