Things my kids do that drive me up the f-ing wall

[ThePerfectFather]

Just a list of things as the title says.

DD1 is nearly six. DD2, nearly 3, is an angel by comparison. This list is exclusively the preserve of DD1.

Feel free to add your own. I don't know if these are actually unreasonable because in that moment it FEELS like I am the only sane person in the World

1. Habitually coughing so that it sounds like I have a small malfunctioning steam engine in the room. Yes you had a cold last week, but nobody coughs like this "small cough, small cough, breathe, small cough, small cough, small cough, small cough" WHILST ALSO HAPPILY EATING MALTESERS. She doesn't have asthma, she did ballet an hour ago no problem, she's charging around like a maniac in the playground, but comes home and sits on the sofa and just does this stupid coughing thing.

1. Not answering her name until I've said it eighteen times. Even if I am sat next to her.

1. When scooting down the street and is rapidly disappearing into the middle distance : "Stop. Stop. DD1 STOP. STOP. STOOOOPPPPP. STOP NOW. STOP. STOP." Now I feel like an arsehole and people are turning around to see who the loudmouth Dad shouting as his kid is. Amazing how she can only hear me when she's almost a mile away but any closer than that and she's deaf as a post.

1. Failing to respond to her friends saying "hello" or "goodbye". "HI DD1!" they say with joy in their faces. She just calmly continues on her way. This is despite going home and drawing pictures for these kids and making "presents" for her "best friends". How come everyone else's kid seems to understand basic communication but it evades my eldest?

1. Insisting on getting dressed herself then when I go up to check on her after ten minutes, finding her naked admiring herself in the mirror. Get a f-ing move on, we're late for school now.

1. Thinking anything remotely related to vegetables are part of Satan's plan to conquer the World. This includes picking through a bolognese she insists is her favourite food to remove specks of herbs, and even a tiny HINT of a tomato chunk.

1. Being the biggest bitch in the World to her adoring sister. My heart aches for my little one when she asks, with wide glowing eyes, if her elder sister would like to play with her, and DD1 turns with cold, black eyes and pauses before announcing flatly : "No. I don't like playing with you."

1. Begging for new toys, loving them for five minutes, then abandoning them to the dusty under-the-couch region we call "the deadzone".

Phew, that was cathartic as fuck. Would love to hear anyone else's.

DD (7)

The ignoring friends thing. Constantly, daily. Meaning I embarrass myself covering up for her or hiss in her ear. She's done it since day 1 but still seems to be quite popular thank goodness. She is very shy. I know that's why but I'm constantly mortified that people think her very rude.

The selective deafness. Applied to stuff she doesn't want to do eg get out of the bath. Passive aggressive much?

Wearing off a bit now but this used to get me every time. Begs to go on some fairground ride. We queue for hours, cough up 2 quid. She stands there crying too frightened to actually get on. Bouncy castles that used to happen on every time until at least age 5.

Easily moved to tears. I want to say FFS I can't believe you are crying about THAT (did not get own way, brother was slightly mean to you, I brush your hair too roughly) I am tempted to spout on about starving children in Africa but usually restrain myself.

DS (3)

He does the mummy, mummy, mummy, mummy
Yes DS
Errrr mummeeeee
Yes DS
Makes up some random attention seeking thing to say mainly to avoid me giving any attention to DD

I want x,y,z ice cream, DVD, other outrageous request. Never graced with even an attempt at please.
Request is denied
He just carries on repeating it like I haven't heard presumably in the hope of beating me into submission
I just get more wound up and he gets to sit on the step.

Gets told off by mummy. Starts whining and sobbing, 'daddy, daddeeee'
Gets told off by daddy. 'I want mummy, mummmeeee'

Joint frustrations

They are opposite personalities. She is shy, quiet, likes reading, drawing, her own company.
He is a big show off, likes to be centre of attention, very sociable, boisterous.
Often therefore they clash and I am in the middle trying to work out how to somehow be fair to both parties.

DD does reject his overtures of friendship and it's painful to see as I know he means well but there again why shouldn't she have some space to herself sometimes

I get really sick of being asked to arbitrate over minor disputes.
I want to yell 'I don't give a shiny shit who was playing with the lego Chima figure first!'

Ha haaaa hilarious thread

DS (8) does the selective hearing thing so I repeat myself till I get a response. Then he shouts, 'Okay okay I'm doing it'.

He also hates getting into the shower. Once he's in though he won't come out again. He'd be in there for an hour if he could.

Back chatting about everything, or arguing that he didn't do something when you've just seen him do it. Drives me batty, but I do love him really!

Aaawwww judys that last one made me have a little tear! So cute.

Mine are; ds (6) leaving the house every single fecking morning without school bag, coat.

Every morning I say you must remember them, why are you going to school without your book bag blah blah blah

What age do they remember just so I know how many years I have of this left ?

Dd (3) absolutely not listening to a word I say unless it's a treat.

I say get your clothes on, blanks me so I say don't ignore me time to get clothes on. Queue screaming child running over to daddy, "mummy shouted at me "

" IIIII WAAAAAANT DAADDDDY !!!"

Please take daddy and never bother me again !!!

Then on our day off together she's totally in love with me and we have a great time ! Grrrrrrrrr

Ds also has a sulky face which makes me want to hide in the bathroom.

And we are having a third.... can't even drink wine

oh hilarious HILARIOUS thread!!
I just needed to laugh so much right no as am feeling crap so reading this just did it!
Tatty i can't believe your son wants to die rather than tidy up! toooooo funny!!!

Mine is the kids playing schools every minute as soon as they get home. For goodness sake you,ve been at schoolall day. JUST LEAVE YOR TEACHER THERE!!
but it's ' you be his teacher and you be the child and line up and get dressed and hometime etc etc etc

AAHHHGGG!!!

And yes yes to many of the above
ignoring freinds
WHY OH WHY do they do that!!
mine saw her friends and just ignored them and started stamping her feetand banging her scooter
i mean why!!??
is this some way of telling us they can't handle them in the 'real' world?
do they just belong as freinds in school??!!

Yes we love our kids
but boy do they do your head in sometimes!!

And of course MN is populated by people who never behaved like this . . . isn't it?

YY to the ignoring friends!! I actually did think that was just my dd3. She's now nearly 12 and she actually still does this .

And big fat raspberry to the po faced posters berating the OP - you've scared him away .

V cathartic thread. I thought of another one

The overly prescriptive play

DD has grown out of this but now DS has started.

Currently and for the last half an hour he is hiding under a duvet and shouting 'touch my hand'. I then touch it and he pops up. Hilarious apparently. For me mildly diverting for 5 mins.
I have tried touching other body parts, tickling or other minor variations but no it must be exactly as he says. 'No mummy I said touch my hand!'

Reading his favourite story my characterisation got a critique

'Mummy the gingerbread man is a boy. You did a girl voice do a boy voice'
I start again in my best 'boy voice'
No, no mummy . Like this, like this

Endless imaginary scenarios where you have to do exactly as they say
Pretend that you were the mermaid and then I dived in the sea and you said, 'hey you splashed me' and on and on
You try to branch out a little, go off piste a bit but no
No, no mummy! You were supposed to say 'you splashed me'
This makes me want to storm off and say 'well then I am not playing so ner!'

Very relieving to read that my dd is not the only one to ignore friends when they talk to her! I even asked her teacher, apparently she is very popular??

katrina my dd is popular too but tbh I don't know why as she snubs most of the kids from school when we see them out and about!

come back OP!
Don't be scared off

Oh the imaginary games mamadoc
makes you go mad!!
how come they can remember their whole script but can't remember 1 second after you have told them to do something?!

DD 3yrs does something she shouldn't, I raise my voice slightly/increase volume/ lower my tone to a warning one, and she says in a really low, threatening voice, "Are you happy mummy?" making me the bad guy for warning her to stop hopping backwards off the top step of the stairs, digging in the mud until her fingernails rip & bleed, stuffing sweet corn in her ears etc etc.

threatening stare "Are you happy mummy?"

Every. Single. Time. What is that??

DD1 is irritating the hell at the moment. She just will not listen. Every single weekend we are having traumas because of the state of her bedroom that she will not tidy. Her worst habit at the moment is shoving dirty clothes down the sideof her bed. It means that she actually might not have any clean uniform on Monday.

She also refuses to do homework an when she does consent to do it, pretends she doesn't understand it and puts in zero effort. I might stop trying to encourage her soon so she learns that it's up to her.

She also does the ignoring friends thing.

2 and 3. Bad news ladies, it gets no better.
DD is SEVENTEEN and to get her attention is like resurrecting the dead. A typical evening would be me shouting up the stairs "DD, dinner". "DD DINNER!!" "DD YOUR DINNER IS GOING IN THE BLOODY BIN!!!!" "AAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH"

The solution was, as it transpired cheap and simple. A £4 cordless doorbell from Home Bargains. One press and child appears.
It's like Pavlov's dog but for teenagers.

Mine also does the thing where he imagines he asked me something and then gets annoyed when I don't answer.

The funniest thing is my son is a mini version of DH so things my DH does that winds me up, now my DS does it and really winds DH up. It is so satisfying.

For example:

DS: Where's my toy car?
DH: It's there.
DS: Where?
DH: There, by your foot.
DS: Where?
DH: There! It's there by your foot!
DS: Where?

Ohh

Lets see

DD 7 also can't manage to say goodbye to her friends or the teachers which embarrasses me. She isn't shy. Happy to see it isn't just mine. Very bright girl but with no common sense. Always doing things that make me think WTF.

DS 15 can't shut a door to save his life.. We have been working on it for 13 years and he still can't manage it. He also can't manage to talk in an indoor voice and think the neighbours wants to hear his conversations.

He also thinks I am too old to know Bob Marley and I am basically just past it and I am very uncool because I don't like Gordon Ramsey and think Hessing Bloomtail's, or whatever the fuck his name is, food sounds gross.

DS 13 counts everything he has and his siblings have to make sure he isn't being treated badly. He once counted how many peas everyone had on their plate

He picks his bloody nose every time he thinks I am not looking

DS 11 is a wind up, he thrives on winding people up and then acting innocent after. He also gets angry (related to his dad dying not long ago) and when he does his vein in his neck sticks out and I want to pop it. He also comes out with some really silly stuff, I could write a book on his little gems of nonsensical questions.

All the boys together seem to communicate by screaming at each other or hitting each other

DD 6 is as sweet as a button most of the time, until her sister doesn't do what she wants her to do then she gets this evil look in her eye and turns into a monster. She is also lazy and moans because she hates wearing school uniform, simply because she doesn;t like having to change after school.

They all love to want to play with the dog when it is sleeping but not when it is awake and playful. 'Don't you dare wake the dog' is my most used phrase.

God-d once solved the prob of being shouted out for not being in the right place at the right time etc. by suddenly developing deafness. Real cupping hand to ear deafness, quizzical look on her face. Absolute, Panto stuff. gullible concerned mother made an appt with the Dr.to have her hearing checked out. But first I did my own test by unwrapping a crinkly sellophane wrapped Quality Street at the other side of the room.

Amazing what a deaf child can hear

OP, you write the book, I'll buy it.

Everything everyone else has said.
I've discovered levels of patience I didn't know existed

And I am NOT a climbing frame (despite what they both sincerely believe)

Remember all these from when the Dcs were younger but people, it doesn't stop.
With teen and adult Dcs we have
The inability to leave shoes anywhere but in the middle of the hall where I fall over them or hurl them into the garden. These are not cute preschool shoes. These are canal boat sized trainers and fuck me stilettoes!
The inability to remove glasses, plates,yoghurt pots from sitting room or bedrooms
Constantly losing chargers so using mine and disappearing with it to uni or other peoples houses
Using all my toiletries
Texting and whatsapping taxi requests, money requests, food requests.
Having a vocabulary which consists of whatever/whenever/dunno/fine

I took a break from the thread thinking I was some kind of monster thanks to the oh so precious brigade. Glad to see everyone's kids drive them up the fucking wall sometimes.

And no she's not special needs. And yes she can be a bitch. And yes I utterly adore both of them.

A couple more I thought of:

1. Sneaking toys into school and lending them/giving them to her friends. It's sweet in a way, but I can just foresee all kinds of issues with it when said friend won't return the "lent" toy because they thought it was theirs forever. She's devious with the sneaking. It's like Colditz.

1. When we're doing her reading, she cheats. Guesses the word from the picture. I cover up the pictures now with a piece of card, damn the teachers I'm going to force this child to READ, not be given massive hints. I can see her scanning the picture and then just taking a punt on each word.

1. Dinnertime for both my kids seems to be some kind of battleground. They BEG for food, I tell them what they are having, they cheer and run around, then poke listlessly at the food and don't sit still for two seconds when it arrives. Of course 2 minutes after "finishing" their uneaten meals they are hungry again. I'm amazed they haven't wasted away entirely for all the time they spend being "hungry" the sweet-chasing little moos.

nice to see you back perfect!