Princess River and Her Mother, Queen Exhaustia

I'm snuggled up with the Squish on the couch.  For the next few minutes (at least until Wild Kratts) is over, she is happy with me, happy to be in my company.  This will not last.  You might remember a few years ago when I noted that River had a really strident cry and that I felt like this would be an issue in a few years.   Go ahead and consider it an issue, my friends.

To say that River and I have a contentious relationship is like saying Lady Gaga is a bit extroverted.  (I don't know...it was the first thing that sprang to mind.)  She's stubborn and bossy all the time, but with me, it's as if she is purposefully also an ass a great deal of the time.  I know I'm not supposed to say that my four-year-old is an ass and it's hard to say it when she's laying her head on my lap and telling me that I'm the best mommy ever, but it's true.

I  can recognize that any child of mine is apt to have not only a stubborn streak, but also a bossy streak.  Combine that with my husband's genes and it would not surprise me if my children became despotic leaders of third world countries.  Or at least really pissy mayors of large towns.

*Interrupting to point out that Wild Kratts is over and River is hungry and, thus, the fangs are coming out.  Yay.*

I've heard it before that kidlets tend to clash with parents whose traits they share, which means that I probably need to go ahead and invest in full body armor and some Xanax, because River is a loooot like me.  She likes to dress up in sparkly dresses and shoes and then go dig around in the dirt.  She narrates every single moment she plays or works on a project, like she's a mini Martha Stewart.  She attaches a personality and meaning to almost every item that passes through her sticky little fingers; scraps of wrapping paper can be the most important items in her possession and woe betide the person who accidentally throws a scrap away.

Guess who is always throwing the scraps away?  Or demanding that the magpie nest behind the rocking chair in her room be shoveled out?  Or ending the princess' ant burial rites because it's supper time?  That...would be me.  I am the enforcer of schedules, the squasher of playtime, the ender of glimmering fairytale dreams in the face of teeth being brushed.  I don't relish this job, but it's the one I've got.

Lately, it's occurred to me that part of the problem (in addition to River's...strong personality) is that when it comes to leisure time, River and I don't gibe.  Jeffrey is perfectly content to wallow on the couch with me and read books.  Or play a computer game.  Or simply snuggle.  River can look at a book for maybe five minutes and then she wants to start doing flips on the couch.  Snuggling lasts for about five seconds and then she's giggling over her own poots or wanting to lick my neck.  She likes computer games, but the ones Will has turned her onto involve dressing princesses (barf) or designing ponies, which I could dig, but River doesn't take kindly to suggestions, nor does she approve of any color scheme not in the blue/pink/purple family.  So it's not real fun for me.

Will says that it's not about what I want to do, a philosophy which I have to be honest and say makes me want to barf.  I categorically discard the idea that our lives must revolve around our children. I'm going to pull a Herman Cain here and say that although I don't have the facts to prove this, I believe that the nation's obsession with kids and fulfilling their every whim is some sort of multi-step plan by large corporations (including banks) to take over the country while we're too busy making sure Shmoopy has the newest pants or phone or iPony app to notice that our republic has been replaced by an oligarchy.

Pantpantpant.

What?

Right, River acting the ass.

So, I just finished fixing her hair so she could go to the Fair with her Nana, and guess what she did the entire time?  She sang a song about how beautiful her mother was, and how nice and sweet, and how she missed me when I was gone and how sad it was for us to eeevvvvverrr bbeeeeee apaaaaaaaaaaarrrt.

Jeez.

Maybe she's like me because she's somehow cosmically a Gemini instead of an Aquarius.

I was going to write about how mean and defiant and cantankerous she was with me, how neither spanking nor timeouts nor time spent with her doing fun crafty stuff seems to put a dent in our combative relationship, but the sheer force of her preciousness has deflated me.

I'll be ordering that Xanax now.