I mentioned a couple days ago that I wasn’t feeling many warm fuzzies towards Liam on our recent trip to Elko.  I’m a little ashamed to mention that, even.  Parents aren’t supposed to be like that, right?  And, for what it’s worth, our vacation didn’t start off that way.  No, I started to become especially annoyed some time after Kile’s surgery and the ensuing chaos.

The thing is, it wasn’t his fault.  Not really.  He was just being himself.  And he’s not “bad” on purpose.  He’s just curious and has a boundless supply of energy.  Everything is a joke to him, so he laughs and smiles and is generally good natured about things, even when he’s doing something he’s not supposed to and is getting chewed out.

But my patience was in short supply last week.  I’ve had a couple months to get used to taking care of both Evie and Liam at the same time, but that also means I’ve had a couple months to secure my home and make Liam-proof adjustments accordingly.  My mother in law had a gate up, which helped immensely when it was in use, but there still was plenty for him to get into.  And I felt nervous enough about him getting into things he wasn’t supposed to that the stress of simply just being there started to build and build.

When we first got there, Kile was easily on hand to intervene as needed.  No problem.  If I was nursing Evie or otherwise involved with her, then he could step in and problem was solved.  But after his surgery, it was almost like he wasn’t there at all.  And while Harry could help, he was often outside riding his scooter or in the basement playing Xbox.  My mother in law, bless her heart, spent more and more time as the week wore on down in her room.  I can’t blame her one bit because if I could have escaped, I totally would have too.  And I felt bad that we were causing her enough stress that she felt she had to escape at all.  It was her house and to have to escape in your own house has got to pretty much suck.

So I would be feeding Evie and while I was tied down, Liam would be perpetrating some awful shenanigans and I would slowly feel my brain start to slide out my ears.

I got to where I RELISHED the times when Liam was out of the equation.  The time in the morning before he woke up, when he was in his high chair for lunch, his naptime (God bless the naptime!), dinnertime in the high chair and then, at long, long last, bedtime.  I loved when he not there.  It makes my skin crawl to write it now.  But it was true.

Now that we’re back home, thankfully, things have gone back to normal.  At least, moreso than they were last week.  Liam has slid into his old routine and our childproofed-within-an-inch-of-it’s-life living room has gone a long way towards lowering my blood pressure.  No more do I need to worry about Liam flipping his sister out of her bouncy seat, or shanghai’ing a remote control or telephone or generally making a mess.  Well, he makes a mess here, but his toys that he’s scattering to the four winds and besides being generally easy to clean up, it’s not as offensive, somehow.

So I’m on the road to recovery with Liam, and repairing our special relationship.  I don’t like to feel the way I did about him.  So I want to hear from you guys:  Have there been times where your relationship with one or more of you children has changed temporarily for the worse?  Tell me this is normal.  And tell me that I won’t feel this way when we go to visit my parents next month.