Frustrated, Incorporated

I admit that I can get frustrated pretty easily. One might think that my years of experience playing video games where the computer is obviously cheating because there’s no way I can drive that fast would help inoculate me against real world frustrations, but one would be wrong, just like anyone thinking the Cubs still have playoff hopes would be wrong. I do my best, but I can lose my cool when I need to do something vitally important, like load the dishwasher, and Abbie, recognizing a rare opportunity to meddle in said dishwasher, toddles over and starts pulling out dirty silverware and threatening to chew on it as fast as I can pack it in. If I’m feeling generous, I go along with her and just accept the fact that I have to load everything twice, and maybe turn it into a learning experience for her by naming everything she pulls out. “That’s a spoon. That’s a fork. Ahhh, butcher knife!” Usually I knock her hand away when she reaches for something and keep the door shut when I’m not actively loading. After knocking her hand away for the dozenth time, frustration starts to build in me and I start looking for a way to finish the dishes unperturbed. Books and toys have already proven no match for the wondrous lure of dirty dishes, so I need a physical restraint, specifically mommy if she’s home and not trying to recover from a long call night of delivering babies and an even longer presentation she had to give. If mommy is unavailable, the crib with its attached lights and sounds aquarium toy works well for a couple minutes of entertainment. Thus I can finish the dishes, the frustration subsides, and I feel minimal guilt for wanting to spend time cleaning dishes instead of playing with my beautiful, delightful, charming, tolerable, middling, whining, maddening, exasperating daughter.

The frustration I feel is nowhere near what Abbie feels. Young children are easily frustrated when they want to do something but can’t physically do it, and when you’re just over a year old, there’s lots of stuff you can’t physically do. Like when I enter the bathroom and close the door behind me, and Abbie knows I’m having all sorts of fun in there chewing on soap bottles and tossing her rubber duck around the bathtub. She will bang on the door screaming hysterically in frustration that she can’t join me in the glamorous world of the bathroom. When I open the door to leave, she toddles into the bathroom and the tears stop, at least until she slams her fingers while trying to lift the toilet seat.

Last night while cleaning the kitchen, I shut the dishwasher door to keep meddling hands out of it. Our portable dishwasher was positioned in front of the cabinets, so Abbie waddled over to them since they’re the closest things for her to poke around in. I had the dishwasher situated to block most of the doors, but one door was completely uncovered, and another’s handle was exposed though the dishwasher prevented her from opening it more than a couple inches. Abbie tried opening the partially obstructed door first, and was upset that she could open it no more than a couple inches. She wanted access to its magical contents, like the George Foreman Grill,* possibly because she had a cut of meat she wanted to cook while knocking out the fat. After a couple of tries, she realized that no matter how hard she pulled or how hard she screamed, that door would not adequately open, and moved to the uncovered door next to it. She tugged once, but the magnets keeping it closed held it in place, so she tugged harder, hard enough to swing the door wide open. Of course, being a young child, she didn’t expect that to happen, and thwacked herself right in the nose with the door as it flung open. At this point she was frustrated that our elaborate cabinet security system continued to stymie her and her nose was in searing pain, and that combines to produce a powerful set of tears. I picked her up and comforted her for a while. I even read to her for a few minutes to help take her mind off the nasal throbbing. Once calm, I returned to cleaning the dishes because this was vitally important work and she was happily entertaining herself in her room. About 18 seconds later I deposited her in her crib.

* We call it the “Foremanator” in our house.