I Was Told It Gets Easier as They Get Older

"Nope". They were wrong.

I want a refund.

A few years ago when she was five, my mother-in-law gave me some parenting advice.

“It will get easier”, she told me. I hoped and waited and struggled with many a bedtime waiting for the day that it would get easier.

Spoiler: Being a parent doesn’t get easier - It just becomes different.

My biggest complaint is that the child now has a personality and mind of her own and I’m still getting used to living with BW and has a very big mind and is very smart and so I always listen to what she tells me to do.

The dog still chases it’s tail so I know it doesn’t get better with age. This is the best it gets with the dog.

But the child? Yes, she’s been easier in some ways. As I write this she’s upstairs brushing her teeth and putting herself to bed for the most part - at least that’s what I am imagining - I haven’t gone up to check.

But I want to share a new word that has come out of the child a few times today:

Wait, what do you mean, “nope”? What is this word you speak? I asked her after she spouted this at me when I asked her to get to bed. It’s friday night on a week without school so bedtimes have been a suggestion all week anyway but I sure was not expecting “nope” out of her.

I reminded her that “nope” is a word I can use when she wants to play her video games or watch her videos so she better get those PJ’s on - like NOW.

1….2…..3…and up she ran to I hope put PJ’s on, but we shall see.

This wasn’t the first time today we heard the word “nope” come out of her head today either.

Earlier it was decided that the child and I go on a very small Grocery run to pick up a few things and she wanted to make a shopping list and grabbed her notebook.

The 2 ladies made a list, and when BW mentioned she wanted a bottle of wine, there was that word again: “nope”, spewed the child. She told BW she doesn’t need wine and that we were not going to get her wine.

Spoiler Alert: We bought BW the wine.

The shopping trip was uneventful save for one rule:

WE MUST OBEY THE LIST

WE MUST NOT DEVIATE FROM THE LIST

An example: I saw something at the store that I thought we needed - I forgot what it was exactly, but that’s not important because my little helper who was in charge of the list was absolutely positively sticking to the list. No exceptions.

“Nope”, she told me. It’s not on the list. “Sorry”.

There’s that “nope” again. So to those that tell me that it gets easier when they get older I have one thing to say to them: “NOPE. It just gets different”.

Until Next Time,

TH and Co.

PS> Even though it was not on the list she got a pack of gummies out of her old man. Am I am the world’s biggest sucker for her?

“Yup”