This is a guest post by Lacey 

Now I love my mom, but this post is just an observation of two things she does.

And the sad fact is, I do them already, too.

I’m the youngest of six kids. At one point we even had a dog. When my mom would get mad at us she would spout off all six names and some times even the dog’s name. They wouldn’t be in any specific order. In fact had they been in order she would have been able to get to the older kids names faster, but for whatever reason she would still go through half to all our names every time. We’d say something smart and then it would be Richard, Suzanne, Oliver, Krista, Marie, Peggy..LACEY. We always teased her about it afterwards, in which she’d remember our name and get it the first time, but even then, not always.

 I don’t only call off both names. I get it wrong and then I say, “whatever child you are!…..” My husband doesn’t like this approach. He says I know which child I’m talking to and I should call her by name, even if I get it wrong the first time and am frustrated. Maybe when I get mad at him and can’t decide whether to call him, Daddy, Matt or Matthew, I should call him “Whatever husband you are!” That’ll get my neighbors thinking, especially if they know we’re Mormon.

Now that I’m an adult, my mom and I have different conversations. I always find it funny talking to my mom about what she taught us.  I know she taught us a lot, but I think she forgets that there is a vast age difference between us kids, so what she taught one teenager may not have sunk into her 5 or 7 year old. She tells me about things that she taught us kids when we were young, or teenagers. Like she says she talked to us about sex. So I’m 6 years younger than my eldest sister. If she talked to Marie about sex when she was 11 or 12, I was 5 or 6. I don’t really remember those conversations. Or my mom tells me how she tried to teach an older child how to do something, like sewing. The oldest didn’t want to learn how to sew and the next child didn’t want to learn and the next child didn’t want to learn, etc.  By the time she got to me she was tired of trying to teach, so I never learned anything!

I wonder if I’ll be that way with my kids. In some ways I see it already. With DD1 we were very careful to make sure she always used her spoon.  With DD2 not so much. We’re happy if she just tries to use it. So I get some mornings where applesauce has been eaten by both hands instead of a spoon and is all over the high chair.

Or teaching DD1 to clean up. She was the only one who made the mess so we always made sure she cleaned at least half when she was DD2’s age, or 20 months. Now I’m just happy to get DD2 to pick up one or two things some nights. I find myself cleaning after them more because it’s easier then getting them to clean it up themselves.
The weariness of teaching begins.

Does mommy brain set in after only one child or does it usually take two?