Four Year Old for Rent...5 yr minimum committment required

Good Grief, have I just blocked out age four from my memory? After all, this is the 4th 4 year old girl I have had.

She is just so, soooo, soooooo....FOUR!

She stomps around the house when she doesn't like how something has gone down.

She makes the "HMMPH!" noise with her chin in the air before she stomps off.

Her latest tactic is name calling and mean comments. Her favorite thing to tell me forever has been "you're the best mom ever". Now she wields it like a weapon when things don't go according to her plan. Now I get "I'm not going to tell you you're the best mom EVER AGAIN!") or "You're not the best mom now!" or "You're mean to me!"

Somehow, calling Sarah a "loser" has invaded her repetoire. Now, when she threw out "Butthead" the other day, I could trace that directly back to her daddy. (And frankly, I believe it is my just reward for having nicknamed my brother Butthole in our youth...sorry Mike!) But Loser? I have a funny feeling that I can probably trace that back to a Hannah Montana or SpongeBob episode. Lately I have really been pushing Dora, Super Why, and Curious George again. Such sweet shows...no name calling, no Losers.

She hasn't allowed me to have any opinion on her clothes or hair since infancy. (Frankly, that has been something I have encouraged, as it was one less body to dress and prepare in the morning, but lately I have noticed the "looks" as we are out and about, that range from the mom-of-many who gets it and thinks its cute, to the perfectmom whose child is clean, coordinated and coiffed with matching bow who doesn't.) Today she told me she was going to braid her hair, which amounts to gruesomely twisting just one side of her hair and securing it with a little barrette. I offer to do the other side and give her a beautiful braid which I secure with, horror of horrors!, an elastic band. She acknowledges that it is a great braid and asks me how I learned to braid so well, then suddenly, without warning, she freaks out that I used an elastic band instead of a barrette and flings herself on the floor and starts rolling around! She then rips the braid out of her hair and says something like I'm not the best mom or something.

What??!! This is becoming a pattern! Get a grip, she is not a baby anymore and needs to be contained!!!

So I calmly tell her that she may not speak to me that way. What she said was mean and we don't allow our girls to speak meanly in our family and she will need to say she is sorry. She mumbles an insincere "sorry". Then I tell her that if she says something mean again she will have to spend some time in her room. She leaps up and says "I'm going to spend time in my room now!" and stomps off.

Fine. I felt like sticking my tongue out and pbbllleeeetttt-ing at her. I refrained.

As I ponder these happenings, it leads me directly back to the realization I have had for several years now about myself. I am not a young kid mom. I just can't get into their psyche's. I don't get them. I am a baby mom. I totally get 0-3 year old babies. I'm like a baby whisperer. I am completely comfortable, confident and happy as a clam with a newborn, infant, toddler, even early pre-schooler. Starting, aparantly, around age 4 to, oh, I'd say 9 years old, I just don't get it. I don't get them. They frustrate me and they just don't see the big picture at all so there is little real reasoning that can be done. (and doing the math, I currently have 3 children in this stage that I don't understand!)

The glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, is I have entered a new "pre-teen" stage with my oldest now. People forever have told me "just wait until they are all teenagers..." But, hey, you know what? I say, bring it on! Because I am discovering with my new pre-teen 10 year old, that I am suddenly starting to "get her" again. I can relate to the emotions of 4th grade and beyond, because I remember those years myself. The bigger picture starts to set into their little sponge minds and they can reason and understand more. They can articulate their feelings more. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying pre-teen is shaping up to be a piece of cake, there are emotions and attitudes to navigate DAILY. I am just saying that I GET it better than I get "kid", and that makes me handle it better and more effectively.

I have felt like a train wreck mom for years now as I was thrust out of my baby comfort zone and have been wading insecurely through these "kid" years that don't make any sense to me. Poor things. I do realize this is all about ME, and not about THEM...they are wonderful, fabulous, completely normal and age appropriate little kids, who just happen to have a mom that can rock the baby years, and is showing potential to rock the pre-teen years, but just doesn't quite get "kid".

So there are my raw parenting thoughts for today. I am really exposing myself here, but I really believe that there cannot possibly be a mom on the planet that feels that every stage her children are in are her "rock star mom" phase. So if anyone is feeling insecure about their child's stage right now, maybe you will know you are not alone! :)

Parent on, dudes!