Mixed Drinks

05.11.06

 

            So somebody around here started something.  I’m not going to say who, but aside from me and the Little Miss only one other person lives here, so I imagine you can figure it out.

            Seemingly out of the blue, as I’m pouring her some apple juice, she says, “Mix it, Mom.”

            Um, mix it with what?  I already mix it with water …

            “I want apple-grapefruit juice.”

            You’re kidding, right?  I mean apple juice and grapefruit juice mixed together in the same cup?  Who came up with this idea?  Ish!

            “I want it mixed, Mom!”

            Okay, I’ll mix it.  What do I care?  I don’t have to drink the stuff.

            This is all fine and dandy, and not a horribly unreasonable request as long as we have both apple and grapefruit juice.

            The trouble arises when we’re out of one or the other.

            “I want it mixed, Mom.”

            “You can’t have it mixed.  We only have apple.”

            “I want it mixed.  Now!”

            “Now” is the new phase we’re in. As in “I want to go to Grandma’s NOW.  I want to play outside, NOW.  Go to the store NOW, Mom.”

            Which is how the discussion went last night, being that we were all out of grapefruit juice at bedtime. 

            We’re not going to the store now.  We’ve been running all day.  I’m tired.  She hasn’t had a nap.  She needs to go to bed – NOW.  (Oh yeah, I can play this game, too).

            So I’m reflecting on who started this “mixed drinks” idea with my girl, anyway.  I know I had no part in it.  And I wonder if this is a bad thing, a pre-cursor of things to come in her future … like, umm … Fuzzy Navel, Long Island Iced Tea, Sex-On-The-Beach (god forbid my child should ever say such words) or my own favorite, Vodka Collins … are we instilling in a two year old a love for mixed drinks?

            Oddly enough this train of thought leads me to the solution of mixed juice, at least for the evening.  There’s a small bottle of grenadine in the refrigerator.  I can make her apple juice at least look  like apple-grapefruit juice.

            Yeah, yeah, I realize that’s merely feeding in to my mixed drinks concern, but I’m tired.  This whole parenting thing is much harder than it looked like on the outside.

            Before I had my own kid I could see right off what everybody else was doing wrong with their kids.  If they didn’t spank, they should.  If they did spank and it wasn’t effective, well, they were doing it too often and for trivial reasons.  If kids didn’t listen then obviously the parents were yelling too much.  Common sense, all of it.

            Shows what I knew.

            I had never factored in strong wills, personality differences … exhaustion.

            This is an amazing, frustrating, aggravating, beautiful experience – and surely one like no other.  I’m glad I chose the Mommy Road.  I have brief moments of regret only at six in the morning when I would do almost anything for one more hour of sleep.  And at bedtime, when I would do almost anything (like adding grenadine to apple juice) to get one extra  hour of writing time. 

            The grenadine worked like a charm.  She went right to sleep. 

            And so did I.

            Thus I sit here on deadline day clicking the keys furiously.

 

            Sometimes you know what you’re doing.  Sometimes you only think you do.

 

 

Reader Weekly archive: http://www.readerweekly.us/2006/370/Sheri_Johnson.html