Oh, six-and-half-year-old--you always know what I'm REALLY saying.

Please yell at me for waking you up. I deserve to be put in my place.

If you could slosh as much of your cereal as possible all over the table, that would be fantastic. Cleaning up after you makes me feel useful. When I ask you to help out, you know I'm joking, right? Hilarious!

Read you an entire book while you’re eating your breakfast? No problem—I secretly hate enjoying my coffee and breakfast in peace. Also I am DYING to know how this Magic Tree House book turns out. It’s never the same thing twice.

There’s no rush about getting to school. Put your shoes on whenever.

My raised voice is just an attempt to exercise my lungs. You keep not putting those shoes on, champ.

Of course I want to hear your story about the giant bug robots you invented! In fact I can’t wait another moment to hear it! I don’t want to hear it on the way to school, because then I’d be distracted by how on-time we could potentially be. Stand in front of the door while telling me. Don’t forget to take off one shoe, first!

Now put that shoe back on. But so slowly, it’s like you’re not even moving. You are so excellent at this.

While we’re walking to school, if you demand that you don’t want to go to school anymore, you might just convince me. Don’t give up. I will definitely see your point one of these days.

Now take off, without warning, because you’ve spotted one of your friends! Run and keep on running! Make sure I lose you in the crowd, because there is nothing I need more than to sprint the last few blocks to school. You are helping extend my life span, with all this exercise. Good for you!

While you’re at school, I will be filling your room with new toys and my pockets with chocolate. Or I won’t because I’m a heartless monster.

Well, hello! I trust you had a good day. I spent the day as I always do, watching Star Wars, eating hot fudge with my hands, playing with your Legos. But enough about me. Like you, I am so grateful the front of the school is surrounded by ice-cream trucks. It’s so convenient for me. For us! And I know I said you could only get ice cream once a week, but, you know, I say things. I don’t mean them. If you keep asking I will surely crack.

Do I want to hold your backpack AND your art project AND your jacket? Well, duh.

I can barely say “You can only watch two TV shows” with a straight face! You know that if you keep asking I’m going to admit that you can watch all the television you want. Why do I continue this charade? I guess it’s just fun for me.

That inflatable Spider-Man you got at the fair that keeps deflating? That I told you had a hole in it somewhere and probably needed to be thrown out? Another made-up story. I just want to inflate it every fifteen minutes, whenever you notice that it’s gotten all flat and saggy. When you’re not looking I let some of the air out again. Entertaining!

I lie about bedtime. I lie and lie and lie. I say it’s time for bed but we adults all know that sleep is completely optional. I don’t sleep at all, of course.

That’s why I love it when you call for me at 4 a.m. because your sheets feel funny. I get so bored, just before dawn.

I am truly sorry you didn’t get everything your heart desired, today. Try me again tomorrow. Your tactics are beginning to work. I have a feeling that tomorrow your every wish will be granted.

Comments

[Jeni]

Makes me wonder why I am working so hard to put myself through this again!

[Lauren]

I have to chime in and say:A. this post is perfectB. finslippy readers are also hilarious!

Another one to add (on behalf of my 8-year-old daughter)...my favorite thing is to never be able to find anything in your room because it is all buried underneath piles and piles of paper and lists and coloring that WE CANNOT EVER THROW OUT BECAUSE WHAT IF WE NEED IT TOMORROW TO PLAY SCHOOL. GAH. But the sound of your crying and whining when you can't find that one Barbie shoe that came with that one Barbie is music to my ears.

And NO you cannot have more post-it notes from my office!

As one commenter put it, love truly is twisted. Good thing they are cute.

[Katie]

This was awesome. Except for the fact that even though my son is only 19 months, I have a feeling you have sarcastically foretold my future.

[Laura]

Except for the six-and-a-half-year-old part, I would swear you had spent the morning at my house and then written this from inside my brain. No? You mean life a year and a half from now will still be exactly like this (my daughter is almost five)? That's disappointing. But you are hilarious.

[Yup]

Substitute teaching? Is just like this only multiplied by, say, 20-27. And they're not just being normally unhearing and unseeing and unknowing, oh noooooo, they're actually working at being worse than usual.

[Abigail]

There is a special place in hell for those ice cream guys around the school. Okay, I don't believe in hell but I'm willing to make an exception for those guys.

I made a pact with myself to never buy ice cream from them because I knew it would be a daily battle after that. That doesn't stop my 6.5 year old from holding out hope. One day I told him he could have the ice cream we had at home instead and he said, "But it doesn't look like Batman!" We all know it tastes better if it looks like Batman... right? Ugh.

[Frogdancer]

This makes me glad I have teenagers.:)

[Lori L.]

Oh, how you brightened my day just now... thank you, thank you, thank you

[NotACat]

We're still getting some of this at age 13, but then she does have special needs (a Language Disorder) and we did adopt her (at age 4½) so a certain amount of dislocation is to be expected.

What I would like it is the same kind of confidence that it will end as most of the posters above have. My wife and I are exhausted with no respite in sight.

[beyond]

hilarious, alice, as usual. this makes me want to get me one of those 6 year olds.i bbsat a boy years ago. he was almost five at the time. when i told him i wouldn't carry all his school stuff home for him he looked at me like i was insane. i think i was the first grown up who had ever told him that.

[Amber]

Not an original comment from me, but you must know my 6.5 year old too (and 5 year old, and 3 year old...). Nice (for me) to know that they are all the same and I'm not fighting the battle - I mean, living the adventure - on my own.

Fantastic and hilarious post!

[Diane]

I am madly in love with this post.

[Kendra]

Oh, my God, I am printing this and taping it to the refrigerator so that on days when I think I AM going to punt him into the wall, I will laugh instead.

The shoes are my favorite. And yes, by all means, put them on the wrong feet. No, when I suggest that you pay attention to which feet they are on, I am actually criticizing your worth as a human being while begging to be allowed to point out where your shoes belong for the rest of your life.

[Marcy]

My son is just barely over a year old and has already begin the habit of handing me random things. He'll spot something on the floor, pick it up, and then just hand it to me to hold. Like, "here, I knew you really wanted this."

Alice, you help keep me sane.

[Gracieh13]

Your post reminds me so much of what's been going on with my 6 year old. What is it about them, end of school crazies or something??? Ugh, the ice cream truck gauntlet sounds like a real whippin'. Maybe you can find a back way out of the school.

[Tara]

At least we can say we're never bored! And, yes, my 6 and 11 year olds are still doing this. Brave soul that I am, I've had another baby! Can't get enough of that entertainment. Also, I tell my kids that the ice cream in those vans has so much bacteria in it because of poor refrigeration that they will surely get gastrointeritis and be vomiting etc for days. If that doesn't work, you can tell them that they play the music and ring the bell when they run out of ice cream. Ha!

[madge]

That. Was. Genius.

[mama without instructions]

That made me sad. I am dealing with almost 5 and I had very high hopes that things would be getting easier soon. I dream of 6 and beyond but I guess I should adjust and just dream of 8.

[Lynn]

OMG!! TOO FUNNY!! My 14 year old son, my 6 year old daughter, and my 3 year old son all act like this!! Maybe there is hope for my 1 year old daughter and my 6 month old son??? NAH! Didn't think so... Linking your blog from mine!

[Leah]

Spot. On.

[rachellake]

this is my every afternoon with the kid I nanny.he, however, is completely confused as to why I have child-locked the car doors after his multiple attempts to leap from the moving vehicle on the way home. and asks me every day why he cannot get out of the car.and then, once I have opened the door, he just leaves, and lets me haul all his crap inside, to wait on him hand and foot.awesome.

[steph]

This is the BEST! This is my life. Except it's not Star Wars and hot fudge and Legos for me, I like to tell people it's fuzzy slippers, bon bons and soap operas. That's only because I work from home and have to have grown-up TV on when the phone rings.

[shriek house]

I just had to go check my 6.5-year-old's bed to make sure she was still actually in it, because I read your post and thought OH MY GOD ALICE HAS MY KID.

[Jennifer]

You had me at the shoes. THE SHOES! That kills me every morning.

[lucia]

my husband plans to tell our 3-month old that the music on the ice cream vans means they've run out...