Soon on eBay

One 5 (soon to be 6) year old female. May or may not answer to "Princess Leia" depending on her mood. Relatively intelligent although extremely lazy. Photographic memory. Potty trained although prone to "accidents". Capable of acts of sweetness, kindness, and overall cuteness. But also capable of random acts of destruction, terrorism, emotional blackmail and willful malice.

Willing to trade for parakeet.

Comes with free Ewok.

Princess Leia Channels Damien

You remember Damien don't you? Cute little chap from The Omen. Nice enough fellow except he's inherently evil.

Princess Leia has been channeling Damien for the past 4 days. Like a bad crossover idea (science fiction fantasy meets horror) our little Jedi princess warrior has been acting like someone straight out of The Omen. Sometimes cruel and calculating, sometimes bewildered by what she has done, often just a fount of pure evil.

The day starts out with the struggle of getting her to drink milk before school. Calculated excuses of "my nose is itchy, I can't drink". To random acts of cruelty like spilling it on her uniform forcing you to change her and thus making you both late for school and work. Finally to sheer acts of evil like "accidentally" spilling the stuff all over the table.

The day is peppered with these random battles and acts of rebellion. I know at some point these little rebels want to break free of The Empire, but I think 5 years old is a little young to start a rebel force of your own. And if she does succeed in seceding? What happens then? She can't even tie her own shoe laces. I don't care how much force is in her, at this point Vader still knows best.

God knows I love her, I really do. But on days like today I feel like hauling her ass back to Tatooine and selling her to some Jawas.

It's a good thing I am wise to her fiendish rebel ways, her subtle Jedi mind tricks. Emperor Palpatine is not so savvy. Just the other day, after having declared her Wii-less until Christmas the previous night because she had broken yet another device, I overheard her talking to the Emperor:

Princess: Palpy....
Emperor: Yes Princess?
Princess: You know I love you.
Emperor: I love you too.
Princess: I want to be with you all the time.
Emperor: I want to be with you all the time too.
Princess: And I always want to make you happy.
Emperor: I always want to make you happy too.
Princess: Can I play Wii this afternoon?
Emperor: Absolutely honey.

See. Jedi mind tricks. The force is strong in this one.

Let's Be Honest

I love to talk about my kids. I can go on and on and on about how wonderful they are, how proud I am of them, and how they are God's gift to me and mankind.

But I don't feel that way all the time.

There are times when I know exactly how Darth Vader felt --- just a simple guy trying to conquer the universe.... and here come those pesky kids who ruin your day.

There are days when its hard not to feel they're out to get you.

Or that people who commit Munchausen by Proxy are on to something.

Days where you feel that if you had to watch one more hour Playhouse Disney or have one more conversation analyzing how much better Barbie is than the Bratz your head would explode.

And you wonder if its still possible to run away from home and join the circus, even though you're already 35, because life there is surely less crazy than the life you live now.

Parents never say these things out loud because, God-forbid, people might think you don't like being a parent.... or worse... you don't love your kids.

You do like being a parent. And you do love your kids.

But you do feel like this, sometimes.

So let that force within you go.

Welcome to the dark side.