It has been weeks now since she’s seen it, asked for it, given me big blue eyes swelling up with tears. I try to stand my ground, be firm and strong. But those kids know how to break me sometimes. And sometimes, they win.
With my kids being 8 and 6, I felt like the days of noisy toys were behind us. On a shopping trip this month, my daughter fell in love with one of those annoying toys that barks and moves when you walk down the aisle. No, I said. A firm NO.
She has asked for that dog several times since, batting her eyelashes at me. Giving me puppy dog eyes so sweet that I have to turn away and think about how horrid she becomes when she screams about her homework and how mean I am for making her do it. “Please, Momma,” she whimpers for the little brown dog.
She already has something similar…that I hate, that she doesn’t play with. The answer is and always will be no. I won’t buy it, and even she can’t buy it. She cannot put it on her Christmas list.
But kids have a way of chiseling through a mom’s tough outer exterior. They chip and chip away. They wear down that enamel, tear through the layers. They beg and plead so much that I am sick to death of hearing about it. They break me down like a prisoner about to sign a confession to a crime I was nowhere near just to stop the harassment. Yep, those kids know what they are doing all right. And I had taken all the batted eyelashes and puppy dog eyes that I could until I found myself saying, “Put it on your Christmas list.”
What was that about? Ugh. She got me. She broke through and now I’m going to have to live with that annoying puppy dog yip and squeak for weeks until it breaks or she grows tired of that stupid toy and it ends up at the bottom of her closet.
I broke down. I gave in. Just get the stupid thing. I can’t take it anymore. Sometimes my kids wear me so completely down, it’s just not worth the fight at all. Parents are supposed to pick their battles, and I do. But it’s rough when you realize that after putting up what you think is a good fight, you realize you were outwitted all along and you just never really had a fighting chance. I should have saved all that energy for a battle that really mattered.
Mom in the Muddle 
It will give her good practice to care for a real one. 😉
Yep. We’ve got a few of those toys piling up around the house. Glad to see I’m not the only one with a weak will!
Just when I thought I’d finally succeeded in finding new homes for all of our other unwanted toys, here come more.