Parenting Woes

My brother and I don't have a lot of pictures from when we were little; at least not that we've seen. However, there is this one audio only recording, and I'm really not sure why it was recorded, but my brother and I still talk about it. It goes like this:

Beach waves and seagulls whisper in the background. We're having family fun at the beach.
My mom enters the scene. "Danny!... Danny!" He's obviously far away."Danny, don't do - Danny, don't do that. Don't - ... DANNY! I can't believe you did that."
End recording.

That is parenting.

The amount of times I've told Layna not to do something that she then does seems endless. While parenting has caused me to seriously evaluate whether I may have anger issues, I feel like that's completely justified by what I am expected to endure. Nothing in the world will ever test your patience as much as childrearing. One time, I threw a plastic cup out of frustration and basically scared the crap out of my child. Mom of the Year over here.

On the subject of things that might drive me crazy, lately Layna and I have been having a lot of conversations that go like this:

"Mama, I wan' [insert snack name here]". The latest kicks are "app' shin chee-yos", apple cinnamon cheerios; and "freefer 'nacks", freezer snacks. The freezer snacks are pretty awesome and all that's in them is banana, pb (the family lifeblood), cocoa powder, and coconut oil. Nonetheless, she can't live off of them alone, which leads me to my most common reply:

"No."

"Nayna wan' lil bit freefer 'nack," she says as she squints her eyes and shows me her thumb and pointer finger squished together.

"Nope."

"No, Mama, Nayna wan' ONE freefer 'nack." (One finger pointing directly at me, in case there was any confusion.)

This crazy is cuter than the first example, until she takes the freefer 'nack out of the fridge and eats it anyway. Cue cup throwing.