The bickering makes me crazy. It makes me screaming crazy. My 6-year old wants her beloved teenage brother (almost 16 years old!) to play video games with her. You’d think this would be a simple matter, easily accomplished, but the teenager cannot ease up on the 6-year old and he always plays to win, despite her screams of frustration and her tears and subsequently, my screams of frustration. (No tears.)
I am pretty sure I will not miss this part of motherhood. Other things I will not miss include:
1) Washing dishes that I did not use.
2) Picking up balled up socks.
3) The noise, noise, noise, noise.
4) Sticky doorknobs. (What? Your doorknobs to the kids’ areas in your house don’t get sticky?)
5) Unflushed toilets.
6) Losing all the scissors in the house.
7) Tripping over shoes in the middle of the room.
8) Empty milk cartons in the fridge.
9) Whining.
10) Bickering in the car.
If I do miss those things, I’ll just borrow someone’s kids for an hour or two until I come back to my senses.
Actual Unretouched Photo 
What, no toothbrushes and open tube of toothpaste left on the bathroom sink? What about the various wrappers that are left all over the place and stuffed in the couch? Just wait until you have to buy 3 pairs of tweezers in one year….
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Your solution works for me!
There’s A LOT I don’t miss.
Especially the noise.
But so much of what you describe still goes on over here.
You do want your husband to live and your children to reproduce don’t you?
(and.., lean in.., i never realized what a slob i was until i spend a whole day with just myself and everything is still a mess.)
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what gets me is when they, and when i say they i mean the hubby AND the daughter, put the dishes on the counter RIGHT.NEXT.TO.THE.SINK instead of putting them IN the sink. or they put the trash ON.THE.COUNTER. instead of IN the trash that is LESS.THAN.TWO.FEET.AWAY…ggggrrrrrr
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It doesn’t end when they get to be 18 either. I am raising my grandson and teaching my daughter how to parent him. It never ends. I still have to watch her make mistakes that make me want to tear my hair out. It never ends.
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I sometimes tell my wife that I’m eagerly looking forward to the future, when we can be wistful about looking back on right now, and we actually miss the noise, mess and constant stress. By then I’ll have forgotten all of the bad parts. I hope.
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I’ve go a 10-year gap between my 20-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter. They’ve been fighting for, um, about nine years. Since she was old enough for him to annoy. I have been telling him for, um, nine years, SHE ALWAYS WINS. If I have to take sides between a GROWN YOUNG MAN and LITTLE GIRL, it’s a no brainer. But still? He annoys her to the oint of screaming tears at least once a week. Why? Because he can.
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Which reminds me of the old saying: “be careful what you wish for”. We wish for children; why??? Just today my visiting granddaughter asked me: “am I your favorite granddaughter?” These moments WILL pass; then all we’ll have will be the memories. And yes, they will be sweet memories! (You might be thinking: “they WILL???”) ha
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Do you live at my house? The balled up socks drive my husband crazy. I just hate the fact that I find them all over the house.
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One of my favorites is when they say, “Mom!” and I say, “What?” and they say, “Mom!” and I say, “Yes, dear, what is it?” and they say, “Mom!” and I say “WHAT DO YOU WANT ALREADY!!! FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!” and they look at me and blink in surprise and say, in a small, meek voice, “I forgot.”
Other than that, my worst pet peeve is finding lost shoes. I HATE looking for lost shoes.
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The socks. Oh my word, the socks. My 12yo boy leaves them in every room. And sometimes, he wears just one around the house. Why? I have no clue.
And how about the kitchen…they make themselves food, and leave a big mess. I am trying to train them to clean up after themselves, but when their father is just as bad as they are, it makes it difficult!
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