I love my son, I really do.

I just don't like him sometimes.

He's lucky I like him as often as I do. Me and kids are kinda on the outs with one another. Always have been, always will be.

Get that look off your face. I hear you complaining about people all the time. How much you can't stand your neighbor or your boss or your sister in law. People are the pits, man, and kids are people too. Rotten little people.

Kids are just so needy and so whiny and so underfoot all the time and the one I have constantly tests me and takes an hour to do something that I could do for him in five seconds and the way that he looks at me when I ask him to do something makes me want to shave all that hair off his back and feed it to him through a siphon.

The one I have also wants me all the time. He detests his father 80% of the time. That's annoying. And rude. And hard on me because one, I have to be this kid's entire world and two, I have to watch the heartache it causes.
Dave isn't mean. He doesn't yell. Jake has never been spanked, or slapped, or dragged, or pinched, or grabbed at by anyone. When the two of them are playing times are great all around. They are laughing and tickling and having horsey rides and races and tosses and catches. Then it's over. What gives? Jake can be an Oedipal little jerky mama's boy and I'm totally over it.

He's turning three in eleven days. The age that's the worst of the worst of all the worsts there ever are for the first decade of a child's life. I keep telling myself that, but it doesn't make me feel any better about it.

As soon as I've had it up to my ears with him he always goes and does something that is just so cute and reminds me that there is still a bit of baby in him yet and then I feel terrible and guilty and I try not to eat him up because if I ate him now he would be almost three forever and he would never be able to grow up and get jerky(er). Jake has never been much of a mispronouncer or babytalker, but there are a few things that he just doesn't have right and I don't want him to ever get it. Like getting turned "umpsign down". And he wants me to "sit right behind" him all the time instead of beside. And he still sings "ah bah doo anna ah bah doo" when we put his coat on, even though he can say "one arm through, and the other arm through" clear as day. Instead of "I'm going to get you" he still says "iminnaaaaa getcho" when he is really riled up. He still says "i wanna hold you" when he wants to be held. He asks me what he was like when he was a baby and tells me what he wants to be like when he is big.

I hate that I am tired of Jake's impossibilities so often, and that I call him a little asshole in my brain. That when I drop him at daycare I have to reprimand him about saying hello to the adults in the room and not pushing the one kid away (although I want to push that kid too. Not only is he ugly, but he is annoying) every single day. I hate that my few hours each day with Jake are spent teaching lessons and manners and struggling with his constant trying to one-up me and not playing all the time.

I know it is a stage. For both of us.
I know it is normal. For both of us.

I know that we are desperate to run around outside and blow some of this funk off of us. I know we have all been sick forever and it's bringing us down.

I know he doesn't test his caregivers, only his parents. That means I'm doing a good job even if I don't always like the job I have to do.

I knew that I would have to deal with this stage, that I would become exasperated with my child. Being exasperated with my child is so much different than being exhausted from taking care of my child's needs. I felt like a bad mom because I hated getting up at night and changing a million diapers a day and making tiny little mushed up meals every few hours. I feel like a bad person because I get tired of my child's behavior, and in turn my child.

I want to overcompensate for the way I feel on the inside and give Jake little treats and gifts and allowances and exceptions with the rules. I don't because I know that it will spoil him and give him the wrong message. I don't because I know I am able to keep my nasty feelings on the inside and Jake has no idea I feel this way because I'm remaining calm and consistent with him even though my insides are quivering from the time I wake up to the time I put him to bed. Quivering with guilt and frustration and love and hope.

I want to take a day off from mothering and be his buddy, and I know the weather will allow me to do this in exactly the right way in a few days from now. The ice cream parlors will be opening in the next few weeks and the sky will stay light long enough to go to the park after work and the air will be warm enough to bum around downtown for hours on end and do nothing but enjoy each other on the weekends. Doing things like that more than make up for the smarmy looks he gives me when I tell him to put his pants on and he puts them on the couch and tells me that I didn't tell him what to put them on, exactly.