He has been under the weather this week. Exhaustion lowers his immune system and we had a bbq on Saturday. The smoke irritated his throat. Made it vulnerable to spring viruses. I don’t know exactly.
We are going through the motions with life. I drive a lot. A glorified chauffeur. People had random expectations or demands from us. Our patience is skin deep. Our fridge stopped working again. Last time it was still in warranty. Now the same issue occurred but it’s out of warranty.
I prepared dinner last night and the girls were in the backyard. As I called them for dinner the little neighbor answered too. She is three years old, and a firecracker.
We had them all eat around the back porch table. Played up in their room for a bit but they couldn’t sit still in one place. She is not steady on her feet and I realized how exhausting it is to be constantly vigilant about immediate physical safety.
I see kids trip and fall and get up everywhere around me. Some accidents are worse than others. I’m glad we’re slowly getting out of that season.
Anyway, luckily there were not accidents in the back yard, on the trampoline, in the room with the gym slats.
But there girls kept coming in and out of the house. When they finally left I sighed a sigh of relief. But they came back. Leaving on different doors and having to get their shoes. I didn’t realize we were hanging by a thread. I was also exhausted. Jackie had her long clarinet day.
I asked them to go outside and play. But the little one didn’t not want to leave. She found things to pick up and climb the back of the couch, and get hair brushes. Conrad came in and when he saw her climb behind me he said in his rusty romania NO with a stern face. If you say no to a three year old he will automatically do the opposite. A laugh at you. Thinking it’s a game.
Conrad seems to get flustered in his attempt to communicate in Romanian. When a kid doesn’t listen he thinks he didn’t express himself clearly. But it was evident that the kid was not ready to leave this new place ripe for exploration. After the girls trying to persuade her and me gently telling her it’s time to go out and play, Conrad picked her up and she started screaming. She said she wanted to go out around the garden but Conrad was done trying to convince her.
Man, we have big kids who listen and obey. They are polite and made a huge effort to understand the adults or the rules.
Before kids our patience was not worn thin. And we didn’t have the words or thought we had the right to set clear boundaries. And we didn’t care if kids liked us or not. Liking goes both ways.
Anyway, without much expediency I told Conrad to stop and let them slowly get out. But he was laser focused on clearing the house of kids. I didn’t want to make a scene with our neighbors. We have our own opinions about how most neighborhood kids are not a walk in the park. But the older ones at least have some ounce of respect, fear… whatever that is. Conrad tells them to “go away” and they go away. They roughhouse in front of our door, knock to ask if the girls come out to play, sometimes they play nice, sometimes they don’t. Tiptoeing around them is not an option anymore.
As I wrote this, my perspective changed. I was annoyed at Conrad’s stubbornness and inflexibility with kids. I felt like he didn’t really understand how their brain works and how reverse psychology works. If I see things from his perspective, I have more grace and understanding. It takes time and energy to slow down and let go of my own stubbornness.