Little did I know that while Metrodad, Laid-off Dad and I were pounding'em back, our kids were off somewhere trading notes, too.
The last few weeks, the kid's been giving me the Heisman stiff-arm. A lot. Whenever my wife's around, I apparently disappear, and the kid clings to mommy like glitter on glue swirls. [Ah, there was a day when that would've been "glitter on the bottom of your club shoes as you walk home the next morning." How times have changed.]
But things reached a zenith--or a nadir, depending--last night, post-bath, when I tried to enter the kid's room, and was treated to shrieks of "Go away, Daddy! Go away!" No, they were not cries. They were shrieks.
And just in case I was tempted to mope around for more than five minutes, thinking no, there is no more gut-wrenching thing to hear your child say, I hear a commotion from the bedroom, followed immediately by inconsolable sobs.
Turns out I hadn't pushed down hard enough on the lid on the new, disposable sippy cup [1], and when the kid went to drink it, she--and my wife, and the sheepskin rug--got doused in milk [2].
And what does the kid say over and over? It took us several rounds to decipher it, and does she even know what it means? "It's my fault. It's my fault. It's my fault."
[1] new as of this week, the previous batch having been disposed after 15-20 months of daily use, not bad at all.
[2] Organic Valley milk, btw, not Horizons--part of an experiment with knocking the organic self-satisfaction up another notch
I feel ya, brother. :) As the stay-at-home parent, of course I expect babygirl to get clingy when mama comes home from work--but that still doesn't take the sting out of loud, insistent iterations of "Nooo, Daddy⁄!" when I enter the bathroom at the end of bathtime (I used to get the towel, but not anymore) or go into her room post-bath for diaper-and-pjs (again, once my job, but...). :)
oh man, my heart goes out to you. what a story.
i'm with my kids three days a week, and still they want to cling to Mama when she's around. luckily, they still come to me when she's not. however, the new twist is that they cling to the babysitter (on the 2 days i work) and not to Mama. Somehow that hurts just a little bit more.
luckily they're twins, so there's always one to go around. :)
That one does tug at the heart a bit... poor you, poor her, poor everyone.
I know that at 24 I still get annoyed at my dad sometimes (of course that doesn't mean I don't love him!) but I think that's what we children, especially females, are supposed to do.
On the other hand, shouldn't there be some rule that states something along the lines of she can't banish you from her room at LEAST until she's mature enough to stop peeing on your lap?... That's just a thought *wink*
I've been fortunate -- I get the occasional, "I don't want daddy!" which hurts a little, but she gets over it quickly. I can't find any pattern to it, it just appears to be random.
About as close as I can figure, it is often not the one who arrives first that she winds up wanting. Which, of course, means in the middle of the night, we both have to get up anyway...