I'm Just Sayin'

I just told my three year-old, "If you don't quit crying, I'm going to give you something to cry about!" OMG, who am I? I bypassed turning into my mother, and went straight to turning into my GRANDMOTHER! My grandmother raised five kids and helped with a dozen grandkids, I bet she said that phrase upwards of a million times. But me, I'm only 2 kids in, I shouldn't be saying that yet. But it fit, the phrase finally made sense to me. All through my childhood it miffed me, but now, now I get it. It was only the threat of getting popped that my daughter quit screaming. And she was screaming because she wasn't getting good wifi reception on my iPad. Not something to cry about. When children of my grandmother's generation cried, it was probably for something legit, like having to plow a field in 105 degree heat, not a glitchy Internet connection.

Just People, Too

My oldest child is now a toddler. Some people say they aren't good with kids, but those people just don't realize that kids are just regular people in smaller bodies. So to say you're not good with kids is to say you're not good with people. Kids are just like adults. They are upset at injustice, cranky when hungry or tired, stressed when their routine suddenly changes, are annoyed when people patronize them, only know what their world has taught them, and when they are hit or popped they become either retaliatory or oppressed. The only difference between kids and adults is when an adult is tired, they may fall asleep on a couch. A child on the other hand will jump up and down on it squealing.