Sometimes I feel like Cinderella. I'm not talking about the part where she gets whisked off to the castle to marry the prince after she fits in the glass slipper, although Charlie is amazing and often makes me feel like a princess (no complaints there), or the part about having to do all the deep cleaning (I do pick up around the house but luckily the cleaning lady does the deep stuff), or having mice for companions (although Sarah and Amanda are quite whiny and squeak a lot). No, I'm referring to the part in the movie where the step-mother and two step-sisters are all calling for Cinderella at the same time to do the most mundane things that all three of them could do themselves if they would just get off their lazy asses.
I'm not sure how you raise independent kids or if eventually they have to be independent because they live by themselves and they finally don't have anyone else to do things for them, but I cannot begin to tell you how much and how often the kids ask me to do things for them. I'll be in the middle of making dinner and Andy will walk up and ask me if I can get him a glass of milk. Not because he can't do it, but because he wants me to do it for him. At least once a day I am asked to wipe someone's butt (hopefully this is coming to an end but I see at least another six months in it's future), get someone a glass of ice water (not just water, ICE water - God forbid the water is just slightly cool), pick up three pairs of sock, put on somebody's shoes, get me a snack, turn on the light, blah blah blah blah blah. Most of those things they can do themselves, they just don't.
Plus, they all ask at the same time for three different things and get mad when they don't get theirs first. My neighbor laughs when we walk home from school because all three kids are talking to me at the same time and I can actually have a conversation with each of them at the same time. A gift I would prefer not to have.
I have tried to empower the kids by putting the things they need where they can reach them. They have plates, cups, bowls and silverware within their reach. They have access to their snacks, can get the cereal and know how to use the toaster (except Amanda). Andy can reach everything in the fridge and Sarah comes pretty close. But they still keep asking me to do everything. And the socks? They all take their shoes and socks off as soon as they get home from anywhere and leave them wherever they feel like taking them off. Charlie and I are convinced that if we just picked up all the socks and stuck them in a bag each time after two weeks they would have no socks in their drawers whatsoever because they NEVER put them in the hamper. I swear one of those days I'm going to do that and it's going to be soon.
If I was gorgeous, blond and could sing like Cinderella it might all be worth it, but I am not. So here I sit, trying to figure out how to make my kids grow up without them actually growing up and just take a little responsibility for themselves. I'm pretty sure this one is going to be a marathon.
No comments:
Post a Comment