Aren’t families wonderful? Truly, they are the source of some of our greatest joys in life. They’re also the source of many of life’s lessons. Children teach us more about love, patience, sacrifice, stamina, and good old fashioned fortitude than we could ever learn in a classroom or textbook. Still, all the work and tears and sleep deprivation are worth it when your children grow up to be spectacular young adults (like mine). There’s an added bonus when these same children get put through the same sorts of trials that they put their poor, tired parents through. Tee Hee. It’s payback time for Carrie.
Carrie’s sweet Emma is quite a little minx. She’s adorable, funny, dramatic, and affectionate. A smile and hug from her can dispel all irritation and annoyance. In a recent blog post, Carrie admitted that sometimes Emma could drive her absolutely NUTS with her whining and screaming, and she wondered where in the world this behavior could have come from. Must be Rich’s family, right? That’s when Carrie found a old letter that I had written to my mother 32 years ago. Ah, the lost art of letter writing. That’s a topic for another day.
I read this and laughed…and then laughed some more.
“Carrie got cards from Mrs. C. and her great grandmother Clyburn. She excitedly ripped them apart. In fact, she bathed with MaMa’s yesterday morning, and it came apart in a million pieces.
If I didn’t know better, I’d almost believe Carrie just dreams up things to torment me. She’s gone bananas in the past few days. It’s almost like she’s saying, “I’m 18 months old now, and you’d better take notice because I’m my own person.” She slaps and pulls hair, and when you tell her to stop, she goes into a tizzy. She screams and gets rigid all over. It’s a temper tantrum, I guess. She’ll come up to me with a book, and if I don’t stop what I’m doing immediately, she goes berserk. We took her out for walks Saturday and Sunday, and she got so mad when we tried to get her to stay with us…. Oh yes, and now she has to have her dolls wrapped in blankets.
Well, Saturday night Carrie was awake until after 3:00. Last night she tried the same trick of waking up and screaming. We let her scream, and it was simply awful, but it worked. I really had to wrestle with myself not to go in there. What she wants is for me to sleep on the floor beside her bed….”
Folks, I’m ashamed to admit that there were nights when I actually did sleep on the floor just to grab a few hours of rest.
Anyway, Carrie turned out to be a remarkable young woman with talents galore. She’s still strong willed, stubborn, and determined (some of the same words she uses to describe Emma), but is that necessarily a bad thing? Love ya, Sweetie!
mom's musings 
we just get to smile as they deal with the darlings 🙂
I enjoyed reading your post, and she definitely is a little minx. Her latest is an obsession with boobs, and she tells me very excitedly that when she is older she will have boobs too. 🙂
My mom just laughs and laughs, but I know that Kiersten is going to end up with a child just like her (which isn’t bad really).
I LOVE this — it is sooo true! I just have to sit back and not let Erika see me smile when Leighton cries just because she’s put down for a moment — Oh, Erika was the same along with other similarities. Yes, payback is sometime bliss…
well, well, well, you sort of bad mouthed your own daughtwer, i have my karen who is a jabberbox, won’t quit talking ever>>.non stop>>>.karma has only 3 weeks left till mrtlye beach, hilton head, disy world, but not me, rather have my head in a toiliet than goes to where all those pepkpp,loplwes is
and carrie, i would like to meet you some day>>>.maybe in myrtile beach with all my daughters and grands, will have a new grandaughter in 7 months>>>anywho we goe to the beach with karen jabberbox at lesast twice a yeaer and i know your mom is there a lot
That was a hilarious post of Carrie’s! You “done good” with that one, Jayne, and it appears that she is doing good with her own. You should be a proud mama and grandma!