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“My second child came into this world so harmoniously. She fed well, she slept like an angel, she was perfect. After my first no sleeper, boob rejecter, I truly felt like I was hashtag ‘blessed.’ I hit the jackpot.
And you know that kid you see throwing a tantrum, being a real little terror, biting their parents on their bums, lifting up their mothers dress and throwing stuff everywhere, screaming swear words at the top of their lungs and you think, oh thank god that kid isn’t mine…well, that’s her now, that’s my perfect sleeper right there. My angel baby turned into Genghis Khan.
She is 10 out of 10 feral, and I would not purchase again.
This story originally appeared on Love What Matters.
She is stubborn, wild, and defiant. When you tell her to stop running, she hears ‘Run faster, knock down a shelf of sanitary pads, and bounce into someone with a drink spilling it all over them.’
If I relax for two seconds, I know to ask, ‘Where’s Sofia?’ because she’s a runner that would make Usain Bolt look like a power walker.
Disapproving looks from strangers and comments about disciplining her are like white noise. It puts me to sleep.
Those with feral children know that we could handcuff our child to a pole and not only would she get out of it, but she would climb that pole, bungee jump off it, and somehow cover the couch in diaper cream at the same time.
And I try, I do. I try to give her the stink eye and the stern voice that scared me so much when I was a child. I hover like a helicopter and I tell her, ‘Don’t you touch that,’ and she’ll look me in the eye and ever so slowly, touch it with the tip of her finger, and make a noise that would summon the Blair witch. She is the Blair witch. She’s scary. I wish I was joking.
Sometimes though, she looks at me so lovingly with a spark in her eyes and I think, ‘Oh she loves me, she’s so beautiful,’ and she will raise her little hands up to me like she wants a hug and then slap me. Slap. Me. She does ask me if I’m okay after she’s power punched me in the face though, so I mean the compassion is there right?
To those with feral children, I salute you.
To those saying ‘My child is nothing like that’… congratulations, a rude awakening is coming for you over the horizon of ignorant bliss. I was once you, now I don’t just eat my own words, my feral child snatches them from my mouth and eats them for me.”
This story was submitted to Love What Matters by Laura Mazza, where it originally appeared. Follow Laura on Instagram here.
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