Because When It Rains, It Pours. Especially for Parents.

The joys of Monday morning actually began during the preceding weekend, when our entire family got sick with the very typical runny nose/cough/fever/chills kind of cold that comes with this time of year. We spent most of the weekend very….how can I say it….very together, surviving the crabbiness of kids who don’t feel well and boogers and parents who were chronically exhausted long before getting sick.

By the time Monday rolled around, I was actually thrilled to think of getting back to regular, functional life. I woke up to the pitter-patter of little feet and my husband saying, Amy, wake up, we have an issue, and I have to leave for work right now.How convenient. So I cleaned up the mess of a severely exploded diaper, what we like to call an “up-the-backer,” if that brings any clarifying imagery to the conversation.

The morning continued in usual form, with little boy wrestling matches and scuffles, me hollering out rules like a referee between gulps of cheap coffee. I made breakfast and then left the boys playing together while I cleaned up the kitchen and washed the dishes. The kitchen is mommy’s safe space.

Little Theo came scurrying into the kitchen and said Mama – Look!!! (This never ends up well).

There was Remi, toddling towards me, smiling, and chewing on….? The night light? The light bulb!

Still smiling, blood began to pour out of his mouth while his teeth crunched happily on the glass. It dribbled down his chin, splattering on his shirt, pooling at his feet, staining his little white socks. Something like the way men look when they get punched in the face during a boxing match and their teeth go flying. When I reached for him he laughed, and darted away, leaving a red trail of blood.

The good news is that when all was said and done, he is just fine. The bleeding stopped and no, thank God, he did not swallow any glass, at least not enough to hurt him. It could have been much worse.

The day carried on, full of more shenanigans which can only come from having boys. Little Theo broke several Christmas tree ornaments. Both boys senselessly ripped pages out of books. Remi tried to regain my good favor by tossing toys into the toilet. It didn’t work. With my last bit of strength, I resigned to letting them watch a cartoon. Until Remi pounded on the tv screen and pulled the cords out of the wall.

I could see that the only possible solution for them and for me was to send them to their rooms for early naps. Little Theo immediately flew into a full-fledged tantrum. I had to let him scream it out with stomping feet and thrown toys. Eventually, they tired themselves out. Finally, all was quiet.

The evening was comparable. Little Theo refused to paint, color, play, or do anything other than whine and be fickle. Remi ran around pulling cords out of the walls and otherwise causing trouble. He also really enjoys tipping over all of the chairs around the dining table. I have yet to make sense of this.

Neither of them wanted to eat dinner. Theo whined and Remi threw his turkey on the floor while squawking like a stuck pig. Remi went to bed early, but was woken up by Theo’s second grand bedtime tantrum of the day. They both laid in the dark whining and screaming themselves to sleep. Lovely.

My husband and I both agreed that we are probably terrible parents with the most annoying kids ever. He headed out to the garage to his shop to relax, and I buried my head in a book. Seriously though, I swear that they are not brats, and they do not go undisciplined. They are really good kids, but they are kids.

This is a perfect ad for teenage girls who think their lives will be rosy if they get knocked up, like it’s always cute and monumentally wonderful. The truth about parenting in my experience so far, is that you spend the majority of the time feeling like a failure and wondering if everyone else is as terrible at parenting as you are. And other than that you are pretty much changing diapers or cleaning the mold out of the sippy cup you found under the couch. It’s not as cute as the Pampers commercials, folks.

And isn’t that just real life? There are the mountain top moments, and don’t get me wrong, those moments are precious, sacred, holy and incredible moments. The first time you hold your little one, the newborn smiles and gurgles, the first steps, the way they dance, the hugs, the way they need mommy, the way they look in just their diapers, the first words, the way that they learn and grown and become little people of their own. These things are incredible and I wouldn’t change them for anything.

But the moments are just moments. The rest is just life, day to day life. And some days in the day-to-day swing, we don’t get very far up the mountain. Probably nowhere near the top. These are the days when the most incredible thing to me is a bowl of hot leftover spaghetti with a little extra parmesan cheese. Somewhere in the foothills of the mountain, at best.

I would like to recline in a comfy chair in front of a warm fire with a cup of delightful tea in some extraordinary world and say that at the end of the day, the good outweighs the bad. The smiles outweigh the fall-on-the-floor fits. The giggles outweigh the food thrown on the floor. The hugs outweigh the defiance. But in reality, sometimes they don’t. In reality, I plop down on our couch with the smell of diapers in my nose, wipe the boogers and drool off of my shirt, and am so glad the house is finally quiet.

As a parent I think it is easy to heap guilt upon yourself for not enjoying every single little moment with your precious babies. There is some strange expectation that we put on ourselves that says we should cherish every single second. But we don’t, we can’t, it is not possible nor realistic. The purpose of parenthood is not to self-servingly float on a happy cloud of cuteness and picture-perfect need fulfillment of our little people. So maybe we can let that go and give ourselves a break.

Parenting is humbling, in that I have yet to find anything which points more clearly to the fact that I have serious human limitations. Limited patience, limited love, limited ability to give, limited attention span, limited temper, limited self-control, limited gentleness. The list goes on. And on.

This is good, in that it drives me back to God. My prayer lately has been asking God to sanctify my motherhood. I simply do not have enough love for these little people which God has gifted to me, so I ask that He helps me love them with His love. My own is not enough, it runs out, plain and simple.

Oh God, fill all of us parents with all the things we lack, and bless our babies! In Jesus’ name, amen.  

PS - I am too tired to add pictures this time, or to deal with the goofy formatting of this post.