I think Erna might be a lot like me.

My sweet, sweet six-year-old Virgo girl doesn’t like to be told what to do or how to do it; she already knows what to do and how to do it best. She loves boys and high heels and perfume. Fashion. Physical touch is definitely her love language. Burgers and beer all day long. Her voice is strong, and she gets pissed when she thinks I’m not listening to her or when I talk over her. Valid. I work hard to see my daughters purely as individuals and not extensions of myself and/or their dad, but man – some shit’s inarguable. This girl’s got a lot of me flowing through her veins: The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Why do they have to get the fucking ugly? The ugly is the most difficult.

Needless to say, there are challenges in our household. I run this show All. The. Time. There is no second opinion or opposite sex to balance things out a bit – and I’m not 100% sure that would be helpful anyway. Remember – I do what I want to do and how I want to do it, because my way is always the right way… for me. For us.

Ohmygod, for fucking everybody – I wanna tell everybody how to do it my way. I have my own work to do, I am aware. Hah!

At any rate, though I do a bang-up job most of the time, there are a lot of times when I cannot see the forest for the trees. Erna and I are intense right now – we’re either squeezing and loving on each other or hollering at each other. The up and down is real and it is exhausting. And I don’t feel bad about it. There is nothing about me or Erna that is flat. Nothing.

So, last week Sunday did not start out super awesome – she and I had at least three reactionary blowouts and one pretty major meltdown (Erna’s, not mine). Then it was time to go do our grocery shopping. I used to genuinely enjoy grocery shopping until kids fucked it all up. They come along and decide the store is a ballroom dance floor, or a wrestling ring, or a giant hide-and-go-seek maze, and I’m standing there digging through the sacks of apples trying to find one decent bag that’s not hiding a bunch of bad ones. I pretty much always end up picking and replacing – at $3.49/lb, bruises piss me off. And then we get into the aisles – uuuggghhh.

Move over, stay to the right, this man is trying to get by, don’t run, stop throwing random shit in the cart, stop fighting, why are you crying, keep your hands to yourself, separate from each other, Mom – what, Mom – what, Mom – what, Mom – fucking whaaat?! I love you. Ugh.

The tension between me and Erna was riding high the whole trip. And by the end, I had had it. She came up to me while I was doing the self-checkout for two weeks’ worth of groceries – not a small load and don’t get me started on how much I resent rising grocery prices and having to scan & bag my own shit. Where was I? Oh yes – Eran comes up to me with a fake cry – and I know it’s fake because I’m her mother – whining about how Eleanore pinched her in the stomach.

I don’t care. Figure it out. Get outta my way. I’m done.

I’m walking out first, pissed off, heading to grab the $36.99 mum I just paid for off the outside display, and following an older lady who’s walking too slow for my patience at this point. Eleanore is meandering behind me. And Erna is bringing up the rear with a sad face. The old slow lady stops almost in the middle of the second set of doors, turns around and starts talking to me. I only half hear her because A. I’m not interested right now and 2. I don’t hear well. What I did catch was something to the effect of –

Look at that face. I hope someone speaks to you the way you speak to her.

I just smiled and kept walking like I don’t understand English. Grabbed my mum – the beautiful magenta & yellow one, and corralled my daughters. Once we were in the car all three of us talked it out. We reset ourselves for the millionth time that day and we went on our merry way.

A couple of things to the old slow lady: My kid’s crying face doesn’t affect me too much. If it did, I’d be a shit mom because kids can whip up tears like George Washington Carver whipped up peanuts. And, I speak to my kids the way I speak to everyone else. I don’t believe in dumbing myself down, or softening my voice, or incessantly using the word “please” when I talk to my children, or any children. I’m sure the old slow lady is a lovely human being, and she was absolutely well-meaning toward Erna, but fuck her.