Thankful yet Frustrated

Can you be thankful and frustrated at the same time? I am. I love my kids.

Love, love, love, love them. I am so grateful for them because it took so long to create our family. At the same time they do things that make me go... huh? What in the world were you thinking? I look at what they do sometimes and listen to what they say and wonder why their mother isn't teaching them better... oh wait... that's me.

I watched my boys at the dinner table tonight and knew that if it was a table full of girls it would be sooooooo different. Then I thought back to our dinners growing up and took that thought back.

Of course my parents are enormously amused as I phone them with tales of what my boys are up to. Personally I don't think it is fair that the universe has seen fit to send me boys who talk back, sneak out of their rooms at night, have messy rooms with everything stuffed under their beds, tattle on their siblings .... okay scratch the last four... now that I think about it, that actually seems fair.

But the talking back part... SOOOOOOO not right.

Take Smiley for example. He hears only what he wants to hear. He had the flu last month and instead of throwing up in the bathroom he ran to tell us that he was going to be sick and threw up all over the carpet. I believe I mentioned it earlier. Well, he was sick again on Thanksgiving evening. He actually made it to the bathroom and I was soooooo proud. I thought, "finally he is growing up."

It was a fluke.

Last night before bed he said he had another stomachache and I told him, "if you have to throw up do it in your bathroom and then come tell me." He must have heard, "if you have to throw up come tell me," for at 11:00 pm I heard the splat outside my bedroom door.

Nice.

So I'm still dreaming of the day when he will really hear me when I talk to him. He is my kid who tells me the most that he loves me but he listens to me the least. Still, I love, love, love, him - even if I do not always understand him.