Tonight, a Post from Mome

You know when you're doing something, when you're right in the middle of doing it, and a voice in your head that seems to be separate somehow from the action says to you: What are you doing? Do you know how crazy this is? I would have used stronger language, but I know my father is reading this. I think you get the point without the profanity, though.

Lately I have been feeling this way whenever I find myself fully enmeshed in an argument--a battle of wills or wits--with Lily, who I must remind you is 4 years old. When you find yourself losing an argument to a 4-year-old, lots of them, actually, it's time to take stock.

The thing that interests me most about my arguments with Lily is that they happen at all. Before I had a 4-year-old (or a 3- or a 2-year-old for that matter), I didn't know they could argue. I sort of thought that they did what you asked them to, and if they didn't, you wagged your finger or said "no ice cream" and they either got sad and went in their rooms or complied. I don't remember arguing with my mother until much later, maybe 8 or 9, but she assures me that Lily is merely following in my illustrious footsteps, as well as the footsteps of millions of 4-year-olds before us.

Don't get me wrong. Lily is no pint-sized Dershowitz; her actual arguing skills are certainly weaker than mine, but still I lose, over and over, because the arguments themselves take on a Dali-esque quality and are unwinnable by normal, adult standards of logic and debate, and so because the topics are more in her league, I find myself floundering, trying to get on solid ground, saying things that don't make any sense to her, and repeating them as she melts like the clock in the painting. While screaming.

Let me give you an example. Pants. Today, Lily decided she did not want to wear them. Now, if shorts or a skirt were involved in her outfit, I would have been down with the no-pants thing, but we're talking: shirt, no pants. To her ballet recital. So I said, and I will try to recreate the dialogue accurately to be fair. Me: Honey. You need to wear something on the bottom, over your leotard. It doesn't have to be pants. It can be anything, anything at all.

Lily: WHHHHHYYYY ARE YOU MAAAAKING MEEEE WEAR PAAAANTS?

Me: That's actually not what I said. I said you need to wear something, anything, on the bottom.

Lily: I DON"T FEEEEEL LIKE WEAAAARING PAAAAANTS!

Pause here and imagine a variation on this exchange for about five more minutes at which point I punched my fist through the wall in the dining room. No, I didn't really, but I would have, if my pain tolerance weren't so low, and if Ben weren't too busy to fix it.

Anyway, I don't really have any grand, sweeping, wise, insightful, or questioning conclusion here. I know this is par for the course; I see it in other children every day, and Lily is actually much less argumentative than many kids I know, a few of whom should be doing their act before the Supreme Court...on Jupiter, that is.

I do think it's worth noting, however, in the vast sea of parenting literature and chit-chat that is either earnest or instructive, heartwarming or proscriptive, something gets lost, and it's something I'd like to write about. Life with a 4-year-old (or a 3- or a 2-year-old) can be a total nightmare--your worst nightmare on acid--and as you find yourself shouting at a person who is about 35 inches tall about the need for pants in public, you sometimes need to just stop and listen to the voice in your head that is also saying: Walk away. You will lose.

So what I have been building up to is this. After Lily hit me on the arm with a sweater and was sent to her room (where she yelled: That's fine with me! I felt like playing in here anyway! she also yelled: And you need to come here because I have written you a VERY IMPORTANT SIGN.

I came. The sign read: MOME IS THE MENIST MOME.

Anyone translate? I turned away, and I laughed.