Peculiar

Peculiar. 

What’s peculiar to me is how one of my children eats anything and everything and the other acts like he can survive off air.

Also peculiar is how one can take or leave snacks and sweets but the other acts like along with air, he can survive off junk food. It’s peculiar as well how he is full after two bites of dinner but immediately requests ice cream because he’s hungry.

Also peculiar is how the tiniest cut or scrape makes them unable to function – they can’t take their dishes to the sink, or clean their rooms. But best believe if I say let’s go for ice cream they’re running out the door to the car before the words even leave my mouth.

Peculiar is how they can’t find the remote that is sitting right in front of their face and scream my name up the stairs to come and find it for them. 

Or how about my five year old thinking it’s acceptable to pee in his bath water?

Or my 12 year old thinking it’s acceptable to knock all of the bottles of shampoo and soap down in the shower and not pick them back up.

How I get nothing but compliments from strangers and authority figures about how polite and well behaved they are, but the way they act at home is the exact opposite.

How about when the five year old saw a picture of an angry crayon and said he looks like a crook? Where does he get these things from? Or the fact that the twelve year old knows more about fault lines than I do?

This is all peculiar. Children are peculiar creatures. 

One minute they hate you, and the next they want their momma. One minute they are running around like hooligans playing hide and seek and the next they are fast asleep in their hiding place. 

Peculiar is that there is no one on this earth that I have ever been so frustrated with than I have been with my children. But I have also never loved anyone so wholly and completely, so unconditionally. Peculiar is that I hurt when they hurt and I cry when they cry. Peculiar is that I would die to save their life without a second thought. 

I guess mother’s are peculiar beings, too.

Peculiar – one word prompts.