Days In (Parrish&Darius #2)

Day 19

Parrish moving back in was more chaotic than expected. I knew Parrish was like women in the sense that he had to pack a whole house wherever he went. It took about four trips to get all of his stuff from Pearl's apartment to the house. He was out on the last trip while I organized all of his things, putting away the things he had two of into donation boxes was what took me the longest.

I would've finished faster if it wasn't for Kody.

"Ma, are you done?" Kody sat next to me on the bedroom floor in front of the closet, while I sorted through all of Parrish's clothes. After Parrish left for the last trip, he started throwing a tantrum and I was feeling exhausted.

How can one person own these many clothes?

"Almost, why don't you go down and have a snack?" I folded a pair of ripped jeans and pulled out a pair that looked exactly the same but in a slightly darker shade of blue. I had to suppress a sudden need to strangle Parrish.

"I don't want a snack, I want to nap now." Kody whined and pulled on my shirt.

I scrunched my nose after getting wind of deeply disgusting smell, but it wasn't coming from my cub. On top of Kody's whining and Parrish's hoarding behavior there was a smell of something rotten in the house.

"Okay, then why don't you go take a nap now?" Bargaining with Kody was hard and the smell wasn't helping.

Where is it coming from?

"I don't want to nap alone." He whined again, knocking over one of my towers of shirts with a kick when he threw himself on the floor.

I took a deep breath and reminded myself that hitting your kid is wrong, "Kody, it's okay to be angry but you can't take it out on people."

"I want a nap!"

"Then go take a nap." I leaned over the shirts and started folding them again.

"No!" He kept screaming and my ears started to hurt.

There were still two more bags full of clothes that we needed to get rid off and I really couldn't throw anything away without Parrish saying so or else he'll have an aneurysm because I threw away his overpriced white shirt.

I was only sorting the items so he wouldn't take that long deciding what needed to go. With Kody crying his heart out for no reason, taking a nap was starting to seem like the best course of action. But I didn't want to succumb to his tantrum.

"Kody, you're being very bad. What do you think you should do if you want me to take a nap with you?"

"What?" He stared at me blankly and sniffed in a snot running down his nose.

I bit the inside of my cheek to hold back a laugh, this was supposed to be a teaching moment. If I laughed it would be ruined. All the parenting books I read didn't prepare me for how hard it would be to not laugh in my kid's face.

"Why don't you help me organize this and we'll be on our way to take that nap. How does that sound?"

Kody took a moment to consider my offer. He looked really serious while at it too. He finally nodded, mumbling an 'okay' before he started folding the shirts with his clumsy little hands.

"I'm sorry I yelled at you, mom."

"It's okay baby, let's go take that nap now." After going down I decided to call Parrish and let him know that he needed to sort his clothes out on his own. The call went to voicemail, so I left a message. "Hey, love, we're feeling cranky today, I'm taking Kody down for a nap. I couldn't finish organizing your clothes, I hope you don't mind."