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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us February 13, 2006 Tales From The Crib When your kids drive you crazy Jennifer Margulis “I admit that, more than once, I’ve rushed into our bedroom, buried my face in a pillow, and screamed like mad, knowing I couldn’t be heard,” my friend Leanna told me when her daughter Amanda was 9 years old. I looked at Amanda, who was playing nicely with my two girls. The three of them were drawing, building with blocks, trying on coats. Unlike my spirited daughters, Amanda seemed like such a mild-mannered kid. And there was only one of her. I was glad to know that I wasn’t alone. The secret’s out now: my children sometimes drive me crazy. Insert “often” in the place of “sometimes” if I’ve been up at night with one of them or I’m behind on a deadline or I’ve stepped on one too many toys that are strewn about our living room. The worst thing about admitting this is that I like kids. I was the babysitter everybody wanted to hire. I never understood how anyone could yell at kids (ha!), and it always seemed to me that parents were upset with their kids for acting like kids, which is how kids are supposed to act. I like getting down on the ground and playing with blocks, coming up with crazy pretend games (like African safari where you look for hidden treasure on the savannah and dodge around the furniture when lions attack), having kids dictate stories, sorting buttons. I find little kids as a hominoid group to be such interesting creatures, and I appreciate their illogical logic (”I can’t see the TV if you don’t open the blinds and let the sun in!” “What’s that thing called that starts with Q and is green and crunchy? No, not an apple, a Qcumber!”) I don’t want my kids to drive me crazy. But they do. So what do you do about it? Although each subsequent kid we’ve added to our family (we have three) ups the driving-crazy ante, I’ve learned a few tricks in the last six years. 1. Exercise escape: Health advocates will be the first to tell you that there’s no better stress remedy than exercise. When I get my heart pumping and my blood moving, somehow my kids’ behavior doesn’t seem so annoying. So I pile them into a wagon or throw the baby in the stroller and announce (in a tone that brooks no disagreement) that we’re going for a walk. If a walk’s out because it’s downpouring outside (something that can add to one’s inability to see the brightness and goodness in one’s children), I turn on Janet Jackson and hold a family boogie in the living room. 2. Do something you really enjoy: Why is it that one minute my daughter’s cartwheels seem endearing and the next I’m noticing that the peanut butter on her fingers is staining the carpet? Sometimes parenting can be so repetitive and mundane that it gets a little (forgive me) boring. That’s when I need to hang up the fairy clothes and get out the garden hose — when I do something in my life that I love, be it raking leaves, drinking red tea, visiting a friend or hiking in the hills — and I bring the kids along, we all have fun. 3. Book balm: Mary Sheedy Kurcinka, the author of “Raising Your Spirited Child,” says that reading together can often help calm children down, focus and restart their little systems. It helps distract me too, especially since now my oldest likes books I enjoy too, like “The Great Brain” and Tin Tin. 4. Snack succor: When it’s Meltdown Central Station for me and the kids, it’s often because our collective blood sugar is low. Sometimes sanity is just a sliced apple and a piece of cheese away. 5. Hand ‘em off: Our 13-year-old babysitter always seems so calm and happy when she comes over to play with the kids. Maybe that’s what good parenting is all about — knowing when it’s time to call in reinforcements. Jennifer Margulis is the author of a new book called “Why Babies Do That: Baffling Baby Behavior Explained.” She’s not currently working on a sequel, “Why Parents Do That,” though maybe she should be. The mother of three under six, she lives in Ashland. E-mail her at: [email protected]. DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Deep Muscle Stimulator Ceramic Piggy Banks FREE Entertainment Guide Women's & Men's Slippers Accelerate Weightloss Products Backpacks Online Pharmacy Vegas Travel Guide Search Engine Optimization Student Loans Hotel & Airline Reservations Hammocks Water Filter Helzberg Diamonds Online Casinos Community Bonus Casino Mortgage Calculator Security Systems Mailing Lists Click Here Advertisement .:Advertisements:. Site Search: RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams