This just in: entomophobia could be hereditary

I just realized that parenting is a terrifying journey of self-discovery, one I don’t really want to be on.

It’s reminiscent of the time back in Secondary School when a couple of teammates staged an intervention because I was being too bossy on the basketball court (believe it or not I was actually the captain of the school team). I was apparently the equivalent of Hitler by making everyone come down at 6am to run laps around the school, among other things. Exact words were “tyrannical”, “irritating” and “not even that good” if I recall correctly, although I try to block that particular episode out of my memory.

At first, I was all “rubbish, GO RUN 20 LAPS NOW, MINIONS”. Ok, I might have just done that in my head because I had the good sense to not want to be punched in the face but I obviously thought I was being horribly maligned. Only after some discussion, I reluctantly admitted that I had in fact been just a little bit bossy.

It was an important journey of self-discovery albeit a very painful one. I like discovering things like buried treasure but bad stuff, I don’t like to discover them so much.

Over the years, I’ve discovered enough to think that I know myself pretty well. Or maybe people got tired of telling me that I sucked.

My kids though, aren’t tired of it at all. In fact, it’s so much fun pulverizing my ego that they don’t bother telling me about my flaws, they just skip right to the part about showing me instead. They’re brutal that way. And now I’m terrified that my kids are going to grow up to be exactly like me.

Let’s see. They hate vegetables, love Mraz, eat their fishball skin before the meat, laugh at inappropriate moments, are impatient, demanding, slightly insecure and also just a little bit bossy. The way Truett orders his sister around, let’s just say I can see a lot of myself in there. Best part is, Kirsten is learning to do the same. These days, she’s always “kor kor, COME HERE NOW WEAR SHOES!!”

Just the other day, I was feeding the kids dinner and as I went in to the kitchen to get a refill of water, Tru went completely batshitcrazy and started SCUH-REAMING for his life. I sprinted back into the dining room thinking that he got hurt real bad or was in severe pain and started checking him all over for cuts but there were none. He was too traumatized to talk so I just held him for a long time. Finally, after a lot of shhhhushing and gummies, he pointed to the chair and said “the insect wants to bite me.” I thought it had to be at least a madagascar hissing cockroach or a tarantula but turns out, it was a very tiny flying ant.

Before my son came along, I was the queen of overreacting to insects and the like but I’ve just been ousted by my mini me. I don’t know if I should be proud or appalled.