How to Win Friends and Influence People

AKA My Kids Really Know How to Freak Out and it's All My Fault

I tend to have anxiety a lot and really exaggerate the effects of things in my mind. My children have unfortunately also inherited this trait. Last month Dustin was out of town 3 out of the 4 weeks and then add in all his make up work and church duties and it was pretty much me flying solo for the month. I should also mention that Dustin is use the voice of reason and the only sane person in this family. Without him around to keep us all firmly rooted on the ground it got slightly emotional some nights.

1. About 30 minutes before bed time, Nate looks at me and asks, "What's a kidnapper?" I then launched into a spiel about how kidnappers want to steal children and lock them in rooms and not feed them and so you should never ever leave your mom or dad when you're in public or open the door to a stranger. See how I feed this kind of behavior??

The next thing I know the kids are FREAKING out. What if a robber comes to our house? So I show them our alarm system. What if they break in the window -- will the alarm still go off? Yes. Then they insist that I turn on the alarm and show them where all the lasers are. Nate is the worst. He wants to know where he should go if the alarm goes off. What if he's asleep and doesn't hear it go off? What if the bad guy steal all of his Legos? So finally I've come up with some sufficiently good plans and I get them all settled down and into bed.

Half an hour later, I'm ready to crawl into bed when I remember that Nate is assigned to bring snack for the class the next day. And I literally have no food in the house. And the kids are all in bed, so I can't run to the grocery store. I'm digging through my pantry when I remember that my neighbor, Gina, is a major stockpiler, so I'm sure she has something. I call over and while she's running low, but she does have saltines (which I should mention were a BIG hit with the Kinders). Gina offers to run them over to me since I'm all ready in my PJs so I go over to open the door and WAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIILLLLL! The alarm goes off, waking every single kid -- except for Nate. How he sleeps through the hysteria is beyond me, but it takes me another hour to get the girls settled down again.

2. My kids really like me. And I find it flattering. Really I do. But sometimes I need a little room. On Sundays all sorts of sweet people sit near us so they can help out with the kids, but my kids all fight over who gets to sit closest to me. I try to bribe them to go sit with someone else so I can have some personal space and it *still* doesn't work.

So one particular Sunday the kids were feeling really attached to me. Daddy had been out of town and then I had gone away Friday and Saturday with my girlfriends for a much needed break, and then Dustin flew out 12 hours later. Right around bed time, Nate (who is usually the catalyst for these sorts of things) starts crying, "I don't want to grow up." Then everyone starts sobbing. They are never leaving me. They won't go to college. They don't want to be moms and dads. They want to live in my house forever. Some gems include, "If I grow up, you will get old and when you get old you will DIE! And even if you die, I'll still need my mom," and "What if my kids don't like the BYUs?" I gently try to explain that one day they will actually want to leave, believe it or not. To which Nate replies, "You don't even know what I want. Right now I want to spend time with my dad."

Oh my gosh, I wanted to cry!!! The killer was knowing Dustin was only going to be home for a day before we left on our trip. But they were spoiled by parents (who reports know moments of mass hysteria), and we're home now with NO travel plans for the month. . . yet.

And hopefully one of these days I'll download my pictures from my girls trip and our week in Grand Cayman.