#5 Monster Language

"Mom, you're weird, you know."
My daughter, who is turning nine this year, said to me.

"Huh? My face? That's rude of you."
"No, no, that's not it. I mean, it's things like that."

A few minutes before this exchange, I had a conversation with my daughter like this.
"Today, we went on a field trip to see the work of the riot police."
"Oh, nice! So, how was it? Were there any cute guys in the riot police?"

In response to this question of mine, my daughter called me "weird," as I mentioned at the beginning.

"Mom, usually, you'd ask something like 'Did you have fun?', right? Since you asked 'Were there any cute guys?', it's weird. Well, there were a few cute guys, though."
She said that with a smirk.

Setting aside the fact that I was half-serious with my question.

My daughter has reached the point where she can even use analogies like "usually."
Yes, yes, she's grown up.

Every day, my children's language is updated.
I've been enjoying that change lately.

＊

I have three children.
10, 9, 7... roughly speaking, they are three children born in consecutive years.

"Raising three kids, the nursery school days must have been tough, right?" people often ask me, but I always answer that question like this.
"I don't remember."

The toughest time was probably when the children were 3, 2, and 0 years old.

My eldest son, a restless monster who wouldn't sit still.
My eldest daughter, a spoiled monster who wanted to cling to me constantly.
My second daughter, a newborn monster whose neck hadn't even firmed up yet.

By the way, there is a reason why I call my three children "monsters."

When all three are in a bad mood at the same time, our house becomes like the climax scene of the movie "The Lost World."

Roar over there, roar over here.
Just when the crying seemed to have settled down, the newborn monster who should have been asleep would go 'roar'.

And since this baby monster had the loudest voice by far, she really livened up the movie.

My feelings at such times were just one thing.

"Shut up."

I am confident that I was chanting this word more than Ado, the singer who represents the Reiwa era, back then.

Furthermore, at that time, my husband was a restaurant owner, so he was away on weekends.
It was completely one-on-three solo parenting.

With my three young children, there was always a danger that they could get seriously injured or lose their lives due to my slight carelessness.
Because I was the only site supervisor.
So, without joking, I prayed to God every day, "Please don't let any of the children die today!"

So, I don't mean to brag, but I absolutely do not remember things like "this part of my child was cute" or "when they first crawled."

About four years have passed since then, and the screening of "The Lost World" at our house has ended before I knew it.

Thanks to that, I seem to have a little more breathing room, and I can feel their growth in the words that pop out of my children's mouths.

Especially lately, I've been playing the fool on purpose because I want to know what kind of witty retorts they'll come back with.
It's also fun to try and predict, 'I wonder if this child will respond like this.'

For example, let's say I say, 'Oh, Mom forgot to put on her underwear today!'
Then I can predict that each of them would respond something like this.

10-year-old eldest son: 'Oh, seriously? Were you in that much of a rush?'
9-year-old eldest daughter: 'Ew, Mom! That's embarrassing! Oh, I'm going to tell Dad♡'
7-year-old second daughter: 'Ah, it happens, I did the same thing the other day too' (*Fact)

My eldest son wants to know the background behind why I forgot.
My eldest daughter makes fun of the fact that I forgot.
My second daughter empathizes with the fact that I forgot.

If a response comes back that goes completely beyond my expectations, I feel happy again, thinking, 'Oh, they're growing up.'

I never imagined that I, who had become like Ado, would be able to enjoy conversations with my children like this.

In any case, I hope that 'Lost World' from back then, when I was on the verge of losing my maternal instincts and my sanity, is never screened again.