When my daughter was younger I had a rule: never be in a hurry. When I was in a hurry, I’d get impatient with her playfulness and snap at her. As she’s gotten older, without really thinking about it I’ve moved away from that rule. When it’s time to do something I want her focussed on doing it NOW. And that’s all well and good, except that what it generally means is some variant of yelling and threats from me or my husband, and my daughter getting her feelings hurt.

I am at a loss.

Getting ready in our house typically goes like this:

I tell my daughter that in a few minutes we’ll be going to the park/store/whatever. She says she’s playing and doesn’t want to go. I give her another minute to finish her game and waste the intervening time on the computer. A few minutes or emails later, I tell her its time to go. NO, she says, she’s PLAY-ing. I tell her that if we don’t go now we won’t go *all morning*. That’s okay with her, she’s enjoying her game. But I know, if she doesn’t, that 15-30 minutes from now she’s going to finish her game and want to go out, and it’ll be too late to go because we have to have lunch on the dot of 12 and have her take her nap no later than 1pm so I can get her up and get to Pilates class at 3:30 without a half asleep and very grouchy preschooler in tow ruining things for everyone.

So I put my foot down. We ARE going to the park. Now she’s angry and motions as if to hit me and runs into her room. Do I punish her for hitting if she knew she wouldn’t connect? Do I want her thinking that shadow-boxing is okay? No, but I also really want to leave.

I give her a little time to calm down and then go into her room. She’s hiding behind the big chair. She’s angry at me for making her stop playing. I tell her I am sorry she’s mad but that we really have to get going if we are going to make it to the park this morning. I remind her how much fun she had just yesterday. I bribe her with thoughts of the sprinklers.

She comes out for a hug.

Now I have to get her ready. I ask her to take off her clothes. She climbs on the bed and jumps on me, demanding a ride. I refuse and tell her to take her clothes off so I can put her bathing suit on. She agrees but sees her stuffed animal and commences seeing if she can make it hit the ceiling. I ask her again to take off her clothes. I sound like a robot, because that’s how I feel, like a human tape recording. She tells me she’s PLAY-ing, and we’ve come full circle. I threaten to leave the room till she decides to cooperate, a threat she ignores till I actually get up. At that point she attaches herself to me like a little limpet, saying through tears that she wants another chance. By this point I am annoyed, but I sit back down and once more tell her to take off her clothes.

She wants me to do it.

Okay, I lean down to take off her shirt, and she waits for me to start to rise, then jumps onto my forearms so that I am suddenly bearing all her 40 pounds while my spine is shaped like a cross between a U and an L. It hurts, I yell, she’s sad.

Now its time for the pants. I ask her to take them off since now my back is hurting. She kisses my back and takes off her pants, taking the opportunity to fart at me. Then she tosses the dirty pants and underwear up into the air, laughing gleefully. I tell her to pick them up and put them in my hand. We go through a few rounds of this but eventually I get the dirty clothes and put them in the laundry. The I take her bathing suit and try to put her in it.

She decides this is the perfect moment for a game of catch-me-if-you-can. I tell her its not time to play, its time to put her bathing suit on. Doesn’t she want to go to the park? Well, then she needs to focus and cooperate. Reluctantly she abandons her game and stands before my chair, just out of reach. Come here, I tell her (remember my back getting hurt? I need to be sitting by then) and she takes a millimeter step forward. Eventually I take her by the shoulder and position her. Then I have to wrestle with the swim suit. I bought this thing, and I have no one but myself to blame. It has straps that cross in the back. Who knew that would be a problem? Not me. But they are. You have to get the child to stand relatively still long enough to step into the suit with the straps crossing behind their arms without sending your baby sprawling to the floor. This usually takes me a few tries.

That’s when I remember that she hasn’t used the potty in a few hours.

Okay, I say, so its time to use the potty. She protests. She doesn’t have to! She doesn’t need to! She doesn’t want to! Reminders that we go to the potty before leaving the house fall on deaf ears. She storms into the bathroom and slams the door closed. Then she calls me. I go over and she tells me that she doesn’t want me to look at her. No problem.

A bathroom sulk is good for several minutes, so at this point I waste more time online. I hear singing. Questioning whether she’s peed nets me whining, so I change tactics and ask if she’s done. No! She’s SING-ing.

Several minutes later she claims to be done. Next comes tooth brushing. You’d swear it was torture. She already did it (last night)! She doesn’t want to! Somewhere in there I loose it and start to yell at her to do as she’s told.

Eventually her teeth get brushed, and I eye her hairbrush wearily. How bad does her hair look? is it worth another battle? Nah, her hair will be wet soon anyway and then the other moms won’t be able to see that it hasn’t been brushed.

Only the shoes are left. I send her off to find her crocs, which leaves her staring blankly at the kitchen table. They aren’t there. Even in my house, shoes don’t go on the kitchen table. I suggest she look by the door, where I keep shoes. She goes to get them and puts them on the wrong feet. When I point out they are on the wrong feet, she says she wants me to do it. That’s quickly done. As I am gathering up my things, she finds her winter boots and puts them on her hands. She laughs happily and tells me she’s being silly. On a good day I laugh with her. On a bad day I sigh and roll my eyes. On a really bad day, I yell.

I’m focussed on getting out the door. She’s focussed on having fun. These goals are, at times, incompatible.

Half an hour straight of battles, and we head to the park. I’m already exhausted, plus I feel frustrated with her for being so difficult and guilty for being demanding, controlling, and losing my temper. And the day is yet young.

I have absolutely no idea if I’m being too indulgent or too strict, or if this is all totally normal. I have no idea about anything. I only know I am tired of yelling, and tired of being angry at one of the people I love most. As with most of parenting, I will only know whether I did it right when its too late to fix anything, which doesn’t go on my list of the most reassuring thoughts of all time.