Out Of The Mouth Of Babes, “I Hate You”

Yesterday my daughter, who I might remind you, I lovingly nurtured in my body for 9 months, painfully pushed out of bits that will never be the same again and have continued to love and support in every way possible, said that she hated me.  And I was gutted.

But I feel like this story needs a little bit of perspective.  So let me elaborate.

Our family had just been on a little vacay to Robertson.  Well, just further on from Robertson – somewhere between Ashton and Swellendam.  It was a long ride there and back, but we had a flipping fantastic time there.  It could easily have been one of our top holidays so far.  We spent loads of time together exploring new places, playing cards, laughing together and just generally bonding.

I was on a big of a loved up high.  I felt good.  A bit exhausted, but good.  As family bonding goes – I felt great.

《SWIPE LEFT TO SEE MORE IMAGES》 If you’ve been watching my Stories I need to apologize. My Internet spazzed out on me and so it was a bit all over the place. I also couldn’t share much of what we did the rest of yesterday, so let’s catch up. We headed over to Viljoensdrift to catch the boat up and down the Breede River. Funnily enough, it was the only place I actually got Internet connection, Seth joked that it’s because it’s streaming ?? You can buy picnics and wine to take on board your 50 minute boat trip but we’d just stuffed ourselves with the delicious picnic at Ashtons so we were still a bit full. After that we stocked up on some good braai food and headed back to our cottage at Bushmans Pad to braai. It was the perfect setting with the sun going down. Then once the kids were all safely snuggled up in bed, the thunderstorm hit. My gosh. It was loud and a bit scary. But they didn’t wake up. I on the other hand could not sleep ? All in all it was one of the best days we’ve had sightseeing with the kids. They were into all of what we did so that was awesome. Here’s to many more! #tastethelifestyle #robertson #countrycharm #countrylife

A post shared by Cindy Alfino (@cindyalfino) on Apr 9, 2017 at 8:31am PDT

Seth is working on this project where they are building a Lego model of the building that he has drawn and that is now almost finished being built.  It’s all to scale and made with like, a million Lego pieces.  The thing is, they need to have this 3D version complete by the time the real building is complete.  So him and Brian are working long and hard to get it there which means that for quite a few nights a week, he’s had to go and do that.  Which is what happened yesterday.

We pretty much got back from holiday, unpacked the car and then he was off to go and work.  It’s OK though, I mean it’s not ideal.  But it’s a phase.  There’s a time that early married Cindy would have freaked out.  But current Cindy is weathered and knows that this will pass and we’ll go back to being a normal family unit soon enough.

So I got the girls into the bath and asked them to wash their hair.  I helped them put on the shampoo but then they wanted to rub it in themselves.  Which is fine.  But the way that one of them went about asking was rude.  And for this specific kid it was not the first time that she had spoken to me like that these holidays.  And so I helped the other one and left this kid to her own devices.

It passed and everything was fine again.  We watched Despicable Me while eating supper and then it was time for bed.  I had to shout at them a few times to do their teeth and go to the toilet before bed, but that’s not unusual.  Then the girls started fighting in their room.  Also not unusual.

But then the next minute one of them was walking up to me with the other one following behind sheepishly.  The instigator had obviously been slighted in their argument in their room and was planning her revenge by telling me something that they had shared in secret.  So she walks right up to me and says that while they were in the bath, the other one said,

“I hate Mom.”

Just like that.  Imparted those words like they were nothing but a way at getting back on her sister.

Now I’m not stupid.  I know that they don’t mean it.  Really I do.  But we don’t talk like that in our house.  Right from the get go we have curbed them saying stupid things like that, reinforcing how it makes people feel when that’s said to them etc.

They went on their merry way as if they’d just told me that they loved me.

But I was left there feeling absolutely gutted.  And it’s probably just because I am PMSing hard, or maybe even because I always seem to crash after I have had an awesome time away, but either way, I found myself sobbing in the kitchen.

I dried my tears and tried to just ignore it.  They don’t realise what they said.  I’m overreacting.  Get over it.  SO I went to their room to say good night.  I gave the instigator a kiss good night, but when I tried to give the other one a kiss she just hide her face from me.  So I left.  Switched off the light and I was done.

Lying next to Knox I tried to keep my cool but I was failing.  So when she called me to say that I hadn’t said good night to her, I might have gone in there and lost my mind a bit.

And no.  Not in the shouty, “How dare you say that to me” kind of way.  In the totally classy, sobbing so hard the words don’t come out properly kind of way.  In the end we were both crying.  She was apologising and then it was over.  Long forgotten in her mind, but something I will probably never get out of mine.

I know that this is just the beginning, but it’s something that I am actively going to fight.  Tooth and nail if I have to, but in this one thing, I will come out victorious.  I will win this battle.  This will not be said in my house again.

OK, now that I’ve psyched myself up enough I’m going to go have a chat with them about this.