At the start of January, I tried to come up with some parenting resolutions I could attempt in the new year. Maybe I’ll try to be more patient, or perhaps I’ll try to plan more DIY activities at home to spark their creativity. I could certainly stand to set more boundaries at bedtime, and, oh, I could finally commit to teaching my oldest how to ride a bike! But as I thought about all the things I should start doing for the betterment of my kids, I stopped to wonder: what the f*ck are they resolving to do for me?
I then made a mental list of the New Year’s resolutions I hoped my kid – and other people’s kids, for that matter – would consider keeping:
- I will consider wearing the rainbow pants I begged you to buy for me and then said were “too colorful.”
- I will not eat more than 17 clementine oranges in a single day.
- I will not believe everything my little sister says to me, including that “purple is stupid” and that “the bird is a fish.”
- I will stop picking my nose. At the very least, I will stop putting the contents of my nose into my mouth.
- I will also refrain from wiping them on the wall behind my bed.
- I will not say “I’m HUNGERRRYYYY” 70 seconds after not eating my dinner.
- I will eat the food on whatever plate I’m given because it’s just a plate.
- I will be more specific the first time. (For example, if we own three Spider-Man costumes, I will specify which one I want up front versus repetitively saying, “No, the OTHER Spider-Man costume!” at ever-increasing pitch and volume.)
- I will not claim, “I’m not tiiiiired!” while simultaneously rubbing bloodshot eyes and yawning uncontrollably.
- I will eat the $14 mac and cheese at the restaurant even though it doesn’t look exactly like the $0.99 box of Kraft mac and cheese at home.
- I will not say I wiped my butt when I did not, in fact, wipe my butt.
- I will understand that if I don’t put the cap back on the marker, it will dry out.
- I will know that dipping the TV remote into my cup of milk is not the right thing to do without having to be told.
- I will attempt to use rudimentary logic.
- I will not ask where my coat is while sitting on my bed looking at my own belly button.
- I will eat the browner banana first.
- I will not bite my nails and then hoard the clippings.
- I will not ask “why?” more than three consecutive times about the same topic, including but not limited to evolution, the color of the sky, death in movies, cars going faster than ours, dinosaur existence, childbirth, genitalia, and whatever it is my friend gets to do that I don’t.
- I will not force you to sit with me while I watch the same episode of Peppa Pig for the third time in a row.
- I will not violently jostle the handle to the bathroom door for the 90 seconds you are trying to pee in private.
- I will not stick my fingers under the locked bathroom door.
- I will not say “My tummy hurts” and then say “No, I don’t have to throw up” before immediately throwing up on the couch.
- I will not get an ear infection.
- I will not ask someone to unmix the six different Play-Doh colors I smushed together three minutes earlier.
- I will not effortlessly put on a fitted, button-up Elsa dress and later claim to be unable to put on my pants.
- I will not wake up at 5:04 a.m. but somehow be not even remotely ready to leave for school at 7:45 a.m.
- I will remain calm when there are no more of the race car shopping carts available at the grocery store. A regular cart is acceptable.
- I will not complain that the biscuit is too biscuity.
- I will not violently scream, “I’M NOT MAKING A FUSS!”
We aren’t even two weeks into 2020, and I’ve got a gut feeling these have all been broken by now.
