Teenaged Five-Year-Old

Moody. Emotional. Bad mannered. Irrational. Sometimes I swear that my five-year-old is a teenager. One minute she’ll be sweet and innocent, talking about how much she loves kittens and fairies, and the next she will be whiny and uncooperative, bursting into tears over the ketchup on her hot dog. When I signed up for parenthood, I figured on having at least ten years….twelve or fourteen, if I did my job right…before having to deal with this sort of stuff. Well, I guess I figured wrong.

Yesterday we took the kids to a command family picnic, sponsored by James’ ship. It’s called a picnic but it was actually more like a carnival or fair. There were all sorts of games, bounce houses, rides, face painting, balloon animals, food and drinks and treats, and all for free! (James said the ship shelled out something like $50,000 for this event. Wow. No complaints here, but WOW!) We assumed that this would be a day full of great free family fun- it doesn’t get much better. But what we forgot to take into account was our little girl’s big attitude.

Everything started out fine. The kids saw the bright colors of the carnival from the parking lot and were in high spirits as we sprinted across the street and past the gates. The first thing that caught Josie’s eye was the face painting booth, so we hopped in line. Actually, to be completely honest, I tried to force Jamie to stand with me in the line for a balloon animal, because I always dreamed of having one as a kid and never got one, but he deserted me for the face painting.

I felt silly waiting by myself, without having my children with me to use as justification, so I stepped out of line. Back at the face painting table Josie asked for some pretty flowers around her eye and Jamie got a big spider centered in the middle of his nose.

A man came around passing out arms full of free cotton candy. Score! We were off to a brilliant start.

Next we made our way over to the games. Josie tried her best but just wasn’t able to hit that target. She was frustrated that she didn’t win a prize and that’s when the sour started to seep in. James and I tried reassure her and direct her attention to the bounce houses. Jamie climbed right up and had a grand time bouncing and sliding.

Johnny even got a couple of bounces in.

But Josie whined and pouted and insisted she couldn’t do it.

So we herded the kids over to the picnic area to get some lunch, thinking that full bellies would fix the problem. We filled our plates with potato salad and baked beans and fried chicken and hot dogs and cookies and our glasses with ice cold pink lemonade. More than a decent meal, especially considering it was free. But all through lunch we had to listen to Josie’s complaints: “I don’t like that.” “What should I eat?” “That doesn’t taste very good.”

And when her daddy asked her whether she wanted her hot dog with ketchup, mustard, or plain she cried, “I don’t know!” and burst into tears and buried her head in her arms. I made her take the one with ketchup but when she saw that the bun had a slight tear she refused to eat it. So much for the full belly plan.

  By this time we’d given up hope of trying to make Josie happy. Instead we made sure the boys enjoyed themselves and just drug her along. I insisted that James ride the mechanical bull.

Then we each got a snow cones. Well, I wish we’d each gotten one. I intended to share mine with Johnny but he ended up hogging it all and finishing most of the cup without me.

Before we left, we took a turn at the giant slip ‘n slide, launching the boys down the track.

We finally called it quits and when we got home Josie received a stern reprimand for her inappropriately bad attitude.

I’d like to explain away Josie’s bad mood with the facts that she was tired and hungry and maybe even weary from the day’s heat. Really though, I think it’s just kids. Teenagers get the worst wrap for the mood swings and back talk but youngsters are just as bad, in their own way. They can go from hugging your neck and telling you they love you to stomping their feet and screeching in defiance in the blink of an eye. But hey, maybe with enough luck Josie will get it all out of her system now and have completely grown out of it once she hits her teen years. And even if she doesn’t, at least I’ve got two fun loving, good natured boys to fall back on….Ha ha ha! Did you hear that Jamie and Johnny? Mommy is counting on you!