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Home / Lifestyle

Beck Vass: I was wrong to gloat about parenting getting easier

Beck Vass
By Beck Vass
NZ Herald·
28 Aug, 2017 08:05 PM3 mins to read

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I've pulled over to the sides of many roads and spent many days expecting CYFs to phone. Photo / Getty

I've pulled over to the sides of many roads and spent many days expecting CYFs to phone. Photo / Getty

Less than one hour after I finished writing about how my kids had been going easy on me lately, things went to downhill.

Fast.

It started as soon as we got in the car from daycare pick-up.

My girl, 4, screamed because I opened the wrong door for her to get in. Then she started sobbing because her brother, 2, brushed past her.

Then, he wouldn't get out of the passenger seat and into his car seat in the back.

I am long past the "using force" stage. I have suffered many bite marks, pulled over to the sides of many roads and spent many days expecting CYFs to phone because someone might have seen me struggling with tiny toddler planks that defied the laws of physics.

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I tried my best to ignore my children. After about 10 minutes my daughter finally got out of her seat and tried to get in the front with her brother who, by then, was having a field day in my glove box.

He took offence and pulled her hair. And then the real howling began.

"That's IT! Get in your seats NOW!" I roared.

My son leaped through to the back seat. Finally! About bloody time!

But no, he went one better and hurdled himself over into the boot, a huge grin on his face. You little bugger!

Finally, they got themselves belted.

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Then my girl shouted at her brother: "You are a Poo Poo Fart Head!"

His face dropped with sadness and his voice lowered: "I not a Poo Poo Head, you a Poo Poo Head."

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Oh my God, SHUT UP! You're both Poo Poo Heads!

He said something to her that I didn't hear because I was trying not to crash the car.

More sobbing: "He said (gasp) he was going to (gasp, gasp) do a poo on my head!"

Seriously? My life has been reduced to resolving fallout from poo insults?

When we got home our boy started spitting at his sister and trying to sit on her feet.

She kicked him. He deserved it so I ignored it.

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Sometimes you really just feel like giving them both a pair of scissors and letting them sort it out once and for all.

He stayed close to her, purely to annoy her. She stomped on him. He laughed because he thought it was funny and was only doing it for the reaction.

Then he pinched her and she howled. I could plead ignorance no longer.

"Right! Time out!" I shouted, prompting him to run away squealing because everything is hilarious to him until he gets shut in his bedroom.

He came out of time out and said "sowwy" and I turned the TV on because I couldn't be bothered trying to cope without it after that. (Rewards for bad behaviour, anyone?)

Then, I cooked a boringly mild peanut sauce rice dinner with ridiculously tiny chopped veges which they ate one bite of each and said was yucky before they went to bed with no dinner for the second night in a row.

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Yip. Sometimes being a mum is just awesome.

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