It doesn’t matter, except it does!
My girls are 5 and 3, and they are vocal. I have no idea where they get their penchant for complaining (okay, so I make a living from my rants). They seriously know how to make a mountain out of a molehill… or more to the point, a tantrum over completely and utterly fuck all. Want some examples of what doesn’t really matter whatsoever, but oh so does to two young sisters?
Here are ten examples from this week alone.
She got the pink one.
Pink what? It doesn’t matter. Pink sweater, pink sweety, pink Cadillac. If one got the pink one and the other didn’t (or God forbid it was blue) then life is just not worth living. I’m talking about my life, because I can’t take another fuchsia face-off or rose-colored row. It’s getting to the point that I now dread when friends say they have bought my girls matching presents. I sit there silently praying “let them both be the same colour. Please, don’t let there be just one pink one.”
She’s got more than me.
This is specifically about candy. If it’s peas or sprouts they are arguing over then it’s ‘not fair, I have more than her’. This problem gets ever more serious the better my eldest gets at math. She’s even understanding percentages and proportions (when it comes to cake slices). So when it’s an odd number, the eldest gets more, easy, because the three year old can only count up to eight before she gives up.
It has green on it.
The smaller the green substance the scarier it is. Even the plainest of pasta meals, if I dare to sprinkle a little parsley on it then all hell breaks loose. Out comes the sieve, and the pasta gets rinsed, and then it gets dried on a tea towel, and then they are happy because they have cold, slightly damp, tasteless, tea-towel rubbed pasta for dinner. Yes, that’s better than the Provence-inspired cream of organic it’s-all-good-for-you sauce I attempted. Of course it is.
It’s my turn to be the mummy.
Why? Why do they always want to be the mummy? Why am I the star of every bloody make-believe game? I can’t possibly be a fun part to play–I just shout, sigh a lot and walk to and from the kitchen or bend over picking up toys. No Hollywood actor would get excited about that role. Even I don’t, most days. I’ve tried to suggest they can both be mummies, you know, like friends taking both their babies out. But no, one has to be the teacher, or the baby. No one ever wants to play the daddy though, maybe that isn’t pink enough or them.
My sock is on the wrong foot.
I know it can’t be, you know it can’t be, but tell that to a three year old. She is screaming, sitting on the pavement, desperately trying to prize off her school shoes because the sock is on the wrong foot. It isn’t! I feel like my very grip on reality is slowly slipping away, I have fallen down the rabbit hole of despair. I swap the socks over; it’s not worth it.
She said I’m a boy.
That’s pretty much the biggest cuss you can say to a five year old girl. That’s tantamount to being called a ‘fucking worthless piece of shit’ in their world. ‘But boys are nice,’ I explain. And I get a look, the kind you give to a person that is talking far too close to your face and their breath smells of rotting rodents.
I want to wear a dress.
Always. Even if it’s raining, and we are going to an adventure playground, with mud, and older kids pushing little ones over, and everyone else will be in shorts and t-shirts. It doesn’t matter. They have dresses, lots of lovely pretty frilly dresses hanging in their wardrobe. I like them to stay that way because they are a bastard to iron. But no, the girls will still manage to do everything in their inappropriate dress regardless… probably so no one calls them a boy!
There’s a bug.
‘It’s an ant; just walk around it.’ ‘I can’t, they are in a line.’ ‘Yes, but you are bigger than them.’ See that? That’s me trying to apply logic. See me walking an extra five minutes out of my way and hoping they haven’t spotted the woodlouse up ahead.
I want to sit next to you.
They fight over who sits next to me. Sometimes, in a restaurant, my husband has to proclaim loudly that he wants to sit next to me just to avoid the argument at a table for four. He doesn’t really, because he now has less elbow space to cut up his steak, but at least it’s saved us ten minutes of bitching. Except then we get the ‘but I want to sit opposite you’ argument instead.
I can’t go to sleep until my cuddly toys are just right.
Every. Single. One.
Every. Single. Night.
I’m beginning to get nightmares. What happens to these toys, are they preparing for something? Do they have to be in the right order for when they come alive at night and watch me while I sleep? I stand by patiently and let them rearrange. What choice do I have? I’m not taking any risks!
So there you go: these are the completely pointless problems that challenge the really little ones every day. No amount of ‘but it doesn’t matter’ makes them change their mind. This shit is serious for them. It really does matter!
By Natali Drake. Also follow her on Facebook!