Tag Archives: parents

Family Quality Time, or, Why I Have a Headache

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I’ve had many of rude awakenings on this whole motherhood journey. Most of my lovely images and excited anticipation have been bashed with the hammer of reality. One of these mega-disappointments has been cooking with my kids. I imagined flour smears across cherubic faces, giggles, a few stray egg shells and a bit of a mess but all worth it for the quality family time. Nice image, right? Reality involves much more pushing, crying, illegal knife wielding, disinterest, fingers in noses, and whining to make any of it worth it. Nevertheless, sometimes it’s Saturday. Saturdays are loooooooooong days that need filling. This Saturday’s project: pick a recipe, buy ingredients, cook, eat.

The kids’ interest waned long before any ingredients reached our kitchen. And yet we persevered. Once again, I snapped photos which capture what the experience should be because I know that one day my memory will falter just like everyone’s does. I can show these photos to my future daughter-in-law and prove that I really did treasure every moment. Bwa-ha-ha-ha!

My kids are not 6 feet tall. They are standing on a wooden bench.

See S in the corner there? She’s screaming. Nothing is fair. Those shallots in the pan? Burning.

Now I’m holding S. She’s hitting me. And screaming. I wanted L to keep his hat on for the pictures. He threw a fit. “I don’t even care what you want! You don’t even matter anyway!” WTF? Oh well, look how cute the photo is!

S was just beyond miserable by this point. So we offered to turn on the TV for her. L thought that wasn’t fair. He wanted to watch TV. He no longer gave a flying chef’s hat about the sauce. TV! TV! TV! So, in order to have him come back and finish the final steps, which involved a blender for goodness sake, poor S had to just suck it up and cry more.

So, we did it. The kid made tomato sauce that came out great. There was yelling done by all four members of the family. Tears from two. Some wine consumed. A couple of promises of “never again!” got thrown out, and a couple of assurances of “I don’t even care!” thrown right back. When L got overly fresh over dinner T reminded him that I had just done this super nice thing with him. L’s response? “Who cares? Mommy didn’t even do anything. I cooked dinner.” Ah, quality family time on a Saturday afternoon.

 

 

 

 

Why 24 Hours Feels Like 30, and Still Isn’t Enough Time

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Here’s the thing about motherhood that I didn’t fully appreciate until at least several months into it (ie: when it was waaaaay too late): it never, ever, ever ends. I mean, of course I knew that, but I didn’t know it. Let’s take last Friday afternoon as an example:

I’m home with just S as L is in school. I get a bunch of things done early in the day and plan on folding 4 loads of laundry and watching my DVR’d episode of Parenthood while she naps. But she doesn’t nap. By 2:30 I knew she wasn’t going to nap but up until that point she just hadn’t napped yet. Therefore, instead of giving up on it and doing anything else, I spent 2 solid hours going upstairs every 10,15, 20 minutes to bring her to the potty, find her lovey, give her a beloved book, rub her back, sing one last song, tell her that she just has to lie there and shut her mouth for long enough to fall asleep…. By the end of it I was exhausted and she was as wide awake as ever. But grumpy. (You and me both, Kid.)

This is when I’d like a break please. No dice.

Instead, I put on my extra-good-mommy-hat and bundle her up in snowpants, boots, hat and gloves – each item met with absolute refusal on her behalf – and take her out to play in the snow. She has a great time, except when snow got in her glove (47 times), when her hat got itchy (18 times), when she fell down (88 times), and each time she was told that if she absolutely had to eat it, to please eat the snow off the lawn and not off the driveway (122 times – seriously, why not go for the fresh white stuff instead of the brown, driven-over crap?). Finally, she had a complaint I just couldn’t fix for her – she wanted to sit in the snow but the snow was cold on her “gushie” (sic). But she wanted to sit in the snow. But it was cold on her gushie. But she wanted to sit… (It’s like she took lessons on How To Be a 2-Year-Old.) So we came back inside where she did not want to take off her boots or snowpants or all the other stuff that she had not wanted to put on just 20 minutes earlier. (She apparently aced those lessons.)

This is where I’d really like to insert a break. Again, no dice. Instead, right after taking off all that stuff, I need to put some of it back on so we can go out and pick up L. Naturally, S falls asleep in the car only to be awoken when we arrive back home. And now she’s pissed. She’s perfected the underfoot cry attack. This is staying just out of sight, but right in your way so that no matter how you move you bump into her and knock her down, which will propel her into a fit of hysterical crying which is simultaneously pathetic and totally annoying. She does this primarily while I’m cooking dinner in a hurry. Her favorite time for the underfoot cry attack is when I’m carrying a pot full of boiling water and pasta to the sink.

Naturally, the food I put down, which I prepared within 10 minutes of arriving home, does not meet my children’s standards. They just don’t want chicken, broccoli and spaghetti - their favorite things. No, you can’t have dessert. Break time? Nope.

Bed time.

Stop running around and let me brush your teeth.
Stop squirming and let me put your PJs on.
Stop jumping on the bed if you want a story.
Lights out.
Lights out.
Seriously, lights out.
Potty? OK.
Now lights out.
I said lights out.
I already hugged you.
I kissed you too.
Is there a fire? Then you should be back in bed.
Lights out.

Break time? Not exactly. I finally “get to” fold the 4 loads of laundry I did earlier today. Then fall into bed exhausted. It all starts again bright an early, if not intermittently overnight.

See, there is no break. No calling in sick. No vacation time, personal days, or long weekends. Your job is right outside your bedroom door; it’s trying to get into your lap while you are on the toilet; it’s touching you with sticky hands no matter what kind of mood you’re in. This is the never-ending part. I just wanted to sit down and relax so many times that day and it just wasn’t in the cards. Even this recap of my day skips over a million other little needs that I tended to every minute. No matter how much effort I put into one moment, it doesn’t buy me any kind of break the next moment. There is no time off, no end date.

Today? I kind of want to call in sick.

 

Marital Bliss, Except at Bedtime

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I’m struggling with something that I imagine is pretty common, especially for couples where one partner is a stay-at-home parent. So, I want to put it out there and hear what you all do to keep your marriages copacetic. Here’s the scenario:

I’ve been home all day with the kids, or even part of the day with some of the kids if it’s a school day. I’ve made dinner, gotten them fed, lived through the first half of the witching hour (which, in my house, is actually 2 hours – from 5-7,) and then my husband comes home at 6ish. The kids get all wild and wound up to see him and immediately start acting like jack-holes. I’m DONE. I need to walk away from these small people. T also feels like he is done. He’s tired from a long day at work. He’s hungry. He doesn’t think that it’s fair for me to just pass the kids off to him when he walks in the door.

Our kids go to bed early. By 6:30 S is asking to go to bed, and L just gets wilder and wilder the longer he stays up so we try to put him down around 7-7:30. That doesn’t leave any time for T to come home, get some unwind time, and then face the kids. Basically, he walks in, gets to eat if he’s lucky, and then it’s bedtime routine time.

We just can’t agree on this. What do you do? I imagine that this scenario plays out in millions of homes every night. We both end up feeling frustrated, under-appreciated, and aggravated.

 

If You Were Good, I Wouldn’t Be Mad

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Lately my temper has been a little short. Like, for the last 35 years or so. I come from a long line of short-tempered people. It’s in the genes and I’ve passed those genes on, unfortunately, to both of my children. When I tell you that we are all borderline crazy, you should believe me.

I’ve been known to blow a gasket if T doesn’t hear whatever random thing I just mumbled. An innocuous “what?” or “sorry?” can send me over the edge if I’m feeling stressed. Luckily, I only feel stressed when I’m awake. I try to balance this particular personality characteristic with lots of charm and humor, but sometimes I know the scales tip the wrong way and T deserves some sort of official recognition for surviving (so far) his marriage to me.

L’s temper isn’t news to anyone. His is a hair-trigger, tripped by the tiniest perceived infraction. Just last night he flew into a rage because he didn’t like the shrimp he already put in his mouth and I didn’t jump right up and get him a paper towel to spit it into when he yelled, “GET ME A PAPER TOWEL RIGHT NOW!!!” The kid had a whole fit and then a time out, and then surprised me when he still had the shrimp in his mouth. Seriously, it was maybe 7 minutes of storing half-chewed, unpleasant shrimp in his cheek. (The shrimp thing has nothing really to do with his temper, but c’mon! 7 minutes of shrimp in his mouth? If nothing else, the kid doesn’t give in easily. He eventually got his paper towel from me.)

And then there’s little S, my darling daughter. She is so sweet, affectionate, and adorable that the temper is always a bit of a surprise to other people. But it’s there! “No, you can’t play with the stapler,” is met with screaming, throwing stuff, hitting, and huge pathetic tears. She’s only 2, so her ability to think rationally, listen rationally, do anything at all rationally is a big fat naught. When she gets pissed, which she does a lot, she gets physically violent. “Me hit L!” She’ll walk up to him with her arm cocked and ready to deploy her worst. Generally, the hitting doesn’t hurt him, so she pulls hair. Poor L *usually* doesn’t hit back but just cries for help and cowers while she has two handfuls of his hair, laughing maniacally. I’ve tried pulling her hair back, to show her that it hurts, but she knows it hurts. That’s why she’s doing it.

A WTF family outing goes something like this:

  • I get flustered and mad getting everything ready;
  • T points out that I’m mad for a fun family outing;
  • I calm down;
  • I ask L to go potty before we leave;
  • he throws a tantrum completely out of scope with a simple potty request – you’d think I asked him to amputate his leg for me;
  • 20 minutes go by while L throws his fit;
  • I get SUPER pissed and scream at him;
  • he pees;
  • we load into the car;
  • S demands a particular song;
  • we say no because if we hear If You’re Happy and You Know it one more time we will drive ourselves straight into a lake;
  • she then throws her lovey and pacifier and screams for their return;
  • they’re returned;
  • she throws them and screams again;
  • repeat last 2 steps several times;
  • I get pissed and yell at her;
  • L gets pissed at me for yelling at his sister;
  • T finally gets pissed because everyone is pissed.

You totally want to come hang out with my family, right?

This cycle is completely destructive, stupid, unnecessary and all my fault. I’m aware of that. I know that I am the one who has to change first, blah, blah, blah. I really do know it. And I try. But The Mad always comes back. It might creep up, or it might jump out of nowhere, but it always finds me.

Every night I promise tomorrow will be better. Every day I break that promise.

It’s just that these people are so damned annoying!

Really? You’re going to throw a fit because I’m asking you to pee as we’re on our way out the door to go to happy-child-run-and-play-and-toys-and-candy-and-funfunfun-land?

And you? You’re going to cry because I took the blender away that you got out of the cabinet and set up and PLUGGED IN during the 1.5 minutes I was in the bathroom?

And what about you? Are you seriously asking me what’s taking me so long while you’re standing there after putting on your own coat but I’m breaking a sweat because I’ve wrestled 2 unwilling children into shoes, coats, hats and gloves and I still haven’t had a chance to pee since I woke up this morning??

Sigh. Is there any hope? Will we ever have an actually fun family outing?

 

Proud to be a Bigot

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Today I was called a bigot, closed-minded, and prejudiced. I don’t think I’m any of these things, and I actually think the person slinging the insults in this case is the one with the problem. But, nevertheless, it got me thinking. There is a person out there, whether she’s certifiable or not, who hates me. Or, if hate is the wrong word, who feels strongly enough about my inadequacies as a person to take the time to tell me all about it. In writing.

I’m not really that upset over the strange hateful email I received, more bewildered by it than anything. In truth, I didn’t take the time to read the email, which required several scrolls to reach the end – an eloquent “sucks to be you” sign off. In skimming it I saw it had something to do with her being a church-going person, a majority opinion-holder, and a believer that gay people are deficient, “malformed,” and not great parents because of the unnatural ideas they’d influence their children with.

Are you saying WTF? I know, right?

The truth is, I am prejudiced. I don’t know this woman. Never met her, have no idea what her life is like, but I don’t like her one bit. I’m closed-minded. I don’t want to hear any more of what she has to say because I think she’s wrong. I am a bigot. I am completely intolerant of her ideas. So much so that I won’t read her email or respond to it. She can rest assured that she’s right in her assertions of my character.

I am a closed-minded, prejudiced bigot. 

She also called me a coward. That one I’m not sure about, but she could be right. After all, I am afraid of people like her. I’m afraid of their influence in society, politics, and on fragile individuals on the receiving end of their message.

But I’m not afraid to stand up and say:

  • I think every person deserves the right to love whom they choose;
  • A family is about love and caring and not about who has which organs;
  • Frankly, as long as everyone involved is a consenting adult I don’t really care what your sexual preferences and predilections are.

I’m not afraid of gay people influencing my children. However, I am afraid of anyone who takes the time and energy to write a hateful email to some random blogger influencing my children.

I am lucky enough to live in a time and place where I am generally not the recipient of other people’s hate or ignorance. At a different time I would have been persecuted for being Jewish, kept down for being a woman; hell, at the right time and place I’d probably be burned for being a witch! There are millions of people out there who don’t have my luck, who are living in a time where a person’s sexuality is for some reason important to other people. We can all look back on segregation, women’s suffrage, and various ethnic and religious persecutions and see how obviously, insanely, staggeringly wrong it all was. Of course women should vote, blacks and whites should go to school together, we shouldn’t collect people of certain ethnic backgrounds into cattle cars. That’s all CRAZY! There will be a time when disparate rights between hetero and homosexuals will be among the list of past, obvious, ill-conceived ideas.

Until then, I’m surprised to find myself proud to be a cowardly, prejudiced, closed-minded bigot. I hope my children grow up surrounded by bigots just like me and become bigoted citizens. I hope they find a partner to share a life with. I hope they have families of their own. (So I can sit back and laugh as they get what they truly deserve!) I hope that for your kids too. And I hope none of them ever feel lesser-than, or are ever told they are somehow defected because of who they are or who they love.

So, are you a bigot like me?

We All Start Out Crazy (Don’t We?)

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Did you know that new moms today can get a digital timer to remind them to feed the baby? Is it just me, or is this the most ridiculous item ever put in front of pregnant women? These poor women are distraught, tired and distracted by their own swollen feet, so they’re vulnerable to absurd and manipulative marketing. Your baby will die if you forget to feed it. Better put that timer on the registry!

In case you have the kind of baby who doesn't cry when hungry, or smell when poopy.

People! You do not need a timer to remind you to feed your baby. Your baby will remind you. Your baby is programmed to do just that. Basically, it is the only thing your baby can do for a long, long time.

Anyway, as I was smugly making fun of this timer, I suddenly remembered an episode from my own crazy first-time-mom past. I somehow blocked this out, preferring to remember a fictional history of myself as a non-panic-stricken individual who did not go over the top with her first baby. But I did. Boy, did I ever.

When I was pregnant with L, T and I wanted to take a baby first aid and CPR class. Not unreasonable, right? Well, we were both full-time students with no money or time to spare for such courses. No worries, because I found the perfect solution! A way we could become baby saving experts on our own time for even less money than a course! I found this:

Maybe the scariest thing I've ever received in a box in the mail.

That’s right. I got my very own plastic baby. (This was a few years ago and ours looked a lot less like a blow up doll and a lot more like a dead baby. A totally freaky thing to live with.) What a great thing to have! We could always freshen up our skills. Just pop in the DVD, inflate the baby and compress to our hearts’ content!

If you think this is where the crazy ends, wait, there’s more.

Then I had my precious baby. He actually did choke once and I had to quickly turn him upside down and pound on his back until he vomited his body weight on the rug. Thanks plastic baby for the practice! (You might have mentioned the vomit and suggested doing it over tile or hard wood.)

Fast forward about 8 months when I’m ready to leave baby L with a babysitter. A random girl (who I grew to love) who I found on a university job board. This made me nervous. These days I’ll leave my kids with anyone willing to take them, but this first time I was so anxious about it! Guess what I made her do?

Yup. I made her come about 1/2 an hour before I was scheduled to leave so she could watch the video and practice on the dummy baby. And she did it graciously, as if it was a perfectly normal and not at all neurotic request, and she didn’t tell me I was a crazy lunatic. God, I love that girl.

I completely forgot all of this, like I said, and was so embarrassed for myself when I remembered. So, if any of you were ever under the impression that I’m at all cool, I give you this story as incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. *Takes bow.*
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A Post About S and Grandpa

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S has memorized the How To Be An Annoying Younger Sibling Handbook. Hell, she may have revised the thing, adding new chapters such as “Sitting on Big Brother’s Head – Appropriate Situations to Employ This Most Dangerous Tactic,” and “When Hurting Yourself is Worth it in the Spririt of Getting Big Brother in Trouble,” and “Let’s Make Sure Mom Drinks Tonight.” My sweet little girl pulls hair, claws eyeballs and puts her own fingers into L’s mouth for him to bite. In her defense, she only does this stuff when she’s bored. And she will handle a whole minute of boredom before resorting to these measures.

She’s most bored when L watches TV. This is problematic for me because I plug L into the TV when I have something to do. Like cook dinner, make a phone call, or not kill him. So while I’m super busy cooking, talking on the phone, or not killing, S is in the other room stirring things up. She’s instigating a monster, and she knows it. She will sit on his head, (keep in mind, she’s usually not wearing anything on her bottom half,) pull his hair and claw at his eyes until he retaliates. In his defense, he has a HUGE tolerance for this type of crap. I have seen him watch an entire Wild Kratts with his sister on his head. When he does retaliate though, he does so with gusto. A swift twist, push and throwing maneuver and S is thrown from the couch altogether. He may leave it at that, or he may leap down after her and then the two are a blur of legs and arms as they wrestle it out on the floor.

L weighs 45 lbs. S weighs 23. Fighting is in L’s DNA. S doesn’t stand a chance.

This morning, L is plugged into a movie while I try to pack up all of our stuff as we can finally head home after a week of living with my parents. We have our electricity back and I can’t wait to get back to our normal lives. S does not want to watch a movie. So, naturally, she grabs a handful of eyeball. Like a pitbull, once she’s latched on, nothing can get her off. L is screaming and I’m yanking on S but she’s glued onto that eyeball. I finally free L from her clutches and put S into a time out. She does not stay in time outs so I am re-putting her in the corner again and again and then something strange happened.

A man came in and scooped her up. He gave her a hug and asked her if she will promise to be good. Through pathetic fake tears, she promises. He then releases her back into her freedom. WTF? Who is this man? He looks like my dad, but can’t be.

When I was growing up, my dad was the scary one. When we were naughty we quickly asked our mother, “Please don’t tell dad??” I think he still doesn’t know about the brand new ski jacket I lost in the 5th grade. (Sorry, Dad.) So who’s this softy letting my daughter out of her time out? I could have used this guy 30 years ago.

I guess the moral here is that we all have to wait about 30 years. Then when our terrible children have terrible children of their own, we can do whatever the eff we want. We can be the nice guy if we used to be the mean guy. We can give them Sugar Puff Honey Crack O’s for breakfast and then give them back to their parents. We can babysit and keep them up way past bedtime. All this is to say, that one day, we will have our revenge. Good things come to those who wait.

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Baby Haters?

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Actual Facebook status of a college (clearly childless) friend:

Note to all you parents out there: if you can’t get your baby to stop crying for more than 30 seconds at a time throughout a 2 1/2 hour flight, maybe you should hold off on flying because people like me hate people like you. On an unrelated note, I think it’s about time for a vasectomy.

After a mix of comments, none of which were a hand reaching out of his screen and smacking him, he followed up with:

Listen, I’m not anti child, I am anti shitty parent. If you can’t shut your kid up for more than 30 seconds on a 3 hour flight, I guarantee you that all 20 people sitting within earshot from you think you aren’t trying hard enough.

Am I naive to be shocked by this? Am I so far gone into parenthood that I’ve forgotten how people without kids think and feel? Did I feel this way? Is it normal?

My question to him was, “How exactly should these shitty parents make their baby shut up?” I haven’t gotten an answer yet.

Do childless people really think parents can make our kids and babies do anything? Or is it just a matter of not thinking it through? Obviously we can’t make them do anything. If we could, parenting would be easy. We could make them eat what they’re served, make them go on the potty, make them behave in public places, make them go to sleep and make them stop crying. If only!

Then again, that would mean that our children had no wills of their own, that they were not their own people, that they were not capable of exerting themselves or having independent thought. I’m the first to raise my hand to tell you that my kids’ will and independent thought are often entirely frustrating to me, but I’m still happy that they have them!

As for the crying baby on the plane, I hope that before I had kids I was smart enough to know that despite how entirely annoying to me a crying baby might be, there’s nothing that the parents could do about it. Those poor parents were surely trying all they could think of, and certainly felt the judgement of all the people around them. I’m positive that the parents were more stressed and unhappy about the whole ordeal than anyone else, baby included.

As for my college friend, not sure if I want him to get that vasectomy immediately, or to have a baby of his own!

Thank You

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I want you all to know that I read every comment I get here and on my FB page and every single email. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all the feedback, support, advice and points of view. There are too many awesome points for me to respond to each one, so I’m writing this as a general response:

  • Yes, I am still going to go forward with having L evaluated by someone who is not that douche-bag doctor we saw the other day. My objective is to find out what makes L tick, so I can help him tick in a way that will not piss me off is more socially acceptable.
  • You’re right, all kids behave worse at home. I should be happy and proud that L can behave so well at school. It does mean, at the very least, that he’s not a psychopath, sociopath, or any other kind of terrible-path. And it also shows that he trusts me enough to never really sell him on eBay.
  • I will try to look at L’s ransacking the baking/junkfood cabinet and the freezer at dawn today as a step towards his becoming an independent, self-reliant man. (Damn, some of you are very glass-half-full people!)
  • I had an aha moment today when I read this comment:

….I’ve found my kids doing the exact same things. They ignore rules they’ve known for years, make messes just for the sake of being messy, and misbehave for me while acting the angel for everyone else. I’ve also come to realize that every time they act this way, it’s because they know they can get away with it. I realize I’ve fallen into the parent trap of frustrated speech, not following through, and trying to plead with them to do what I told them. When I follow through with discipline and kind words, all goes back to normal…

Dean is totally right on. Things were bad with L a year ago, I got really strict and mean, things got better. Things were so good that I thought I was out of the woods. I let my guard down. I let small things slide. Small things snowballed into an avalanche of bad, and now I’m here. Time to bring back mean mommy. This will not be fun, but will probably provide blog-fodder.

So, watch out, L! Mean-Mommy is back. And Daddy’s going to bring back Hammer-T. I will try very, very, very hard not to react emotionally. I will suppress my inner combustible self. I will be nonplussed, calm, and mean.

Epic Brilliance, or Possible Idiot

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I may be a genius. Or maybe I’m just emerging from the rock I’ve been under. Either I just figured out a great little trick, or I’ve been unaware that every other parent out there already knows this, and how could I not?

Some background:

L is happy to have a bucket of water dumped on his head pretty much anytime, anywhere. The upside to this penchant is that he’s been happy in the bath since he was a baby. (Although he was decidedly unhappy in his first bath, if memory serves.) Washing his face and hair was never a problem. Then came S, who is quite delighted to be in the water. Is happy as anything playing with the toys and bubbles and washcloths. But woe be to the person who tries to touch her! And may the person who pours water over her head be forever damned!

I’m the meaner parent, so pouring water over S’s head is my job. My wanting-to-complete-the-task impulse is stronger than my feel-bad-for-miserable-toddler impulse. (This is not a surprise.) Luckily, S has had barely any hair until pretty recently. Not sure if you remember or not, but not long ago I made the comparison between S’s hair and that of a certain celebrity:

I'm not kidding. S was a dead-ringer for the Captain.

Good thing for S, her hair has since grown out a bit, into a toddler-chic shag do. Suddenly she needs conditioner. This involves so many more cups of water poured over S’s head. So much more misery. My Efficient v. Empathetic scale started to move.

Here comes the stroke of genius (or my personal discovery that the sky is blue):

I use leave in conditioner in my hair, why not use it in S’s?

This has changed my life. Well, my evenings. Well, the evenings in which I bathe my children. If you don’t do it already, try it!

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