What Goes Around Comes Around

Or...Thankyou Kharma

As I was sitting here reading through some of my favorite blogs and pondering what I should write this morning, I stumbled across an article written by a blogger who was describing her vacation and all the many hours spent in the car with her kids. It reminded me of my childhood and the never ending trips in the car, at least once a summer, in the middle of July to Mississippi.

Boy did my brother and I drive my parents completely nuts.

How did we do that? Besides, the fighting, which is a given anytime you have two or more children in a car, we had several other activities that were amusing to us, but not so amusing to my parents. One of the things that we thought was particularly funny was taking our finger and touching the back of our throat to trigger the gag reflex. It sounds gross but we thought it was pretty darn funny watching each other gag. Thank goodness we never threw up doing that.

For some reason smells were a big deal on those long 12+ hour rides through the heart of nowhere Alabama. There's nothing like a bad smell to get everyone all stirred up. Recently my step-daughter put on some kind Twilight lotion in my car and I instantly figured out how my dad must have felt when I chewed Hubba Bubba grape bubble gum in the car. At least those smells are sweet, even if they are sickening. My brother emitted odors that would choke a horse.

Now that I am a momma, we have our own family trips. Lately I haven't been brave enough to make that long drive to Mississippi to see my grandparents but it is coming. Driving across town is bad enough though. 20 minutes in the car with my kids is equal to at least one hour.

To a child, their "side of the car" is sacred territory. My kids are no exception. If any body part from one child enters into the other child's territory, then all heck brakes loose. It usually ends up in fighting and screaming, then more screaming by me or results in pulling over and trying to calm down everyone including myself.

Recently, my husband and I have enacted the counting system...this system is used by parents everywhere. With some children it works and with others it doesn't but with my two youngest it gets their attention. My husband uses the counting pops system, where he just starts counting how many spankings the kids are going to get. My parents also used this system on my brother and I. As far as I can tell that system didn't work out too well. For the most part, kids are going to be kids and no amount of physical pain can change the fact that they are children. However scaring the poop out of them might dissuade them from fighting for about five minutes.

So one of the "truths" about parenthood, I've found to be relevant to my life is "What goes around comes back around"... or in other words, your kids will be as annoying or even more annoying than you were to your parents. You will not realize how much of a pain in the gluteus maximus that you were until you are a parent yourself and you start to relive those moments through a parental perspective.

The good news is...my parents survived it and there's a huge possibility that I will too. And if Kharma is what she is, then my kids will live long enough to have children of their own to drive them even more crazy than they are making me.