A series of “fails”

I’ve realized that parenting is basically good moments vs. bad moments. Sometimes it’s good days or even a good couple of days. More often it’s a mixture of good early morning, bad late morning, super shitty afternoon, and “I’ve already had 2 glasses of wine before Andy gets home” kind of evening. It’s really easy to dwell on those bad times and feel a bit defeated, however, I’m going to try to make light of my frequent parental shortcomings, for your reading pleasure…

Nick has gotten into a really nice schedule at night time. He will usually eat between 7:30 and 8:30, and then be set until about 4 or 5am. Somehow, it seems like every single time I get up to feed him in the early mornings, Adam will say something. It’s not really quiet enough to be sleep-talking, but it’s not a shriek. It will be like a loud groan or semi-cry, and then he will go back to sleep. I have never even attempted to go check on him when this happens, mostly because there is NO way I am getting up for the day at 5am, and I fear that’s what would happen if he happened to stay awake. A more reasonable time for everyone to get up would be around 7:15 or 7:30ish (closer to 8 or 8:30 on a really good day). If Adam gets up even a little bit earlier than that (7:10. God forbid, before 7!!!), he will start his typical “waking up” routine of screeching, “MAMA!! MAMA!! MAMA!!” over and over again until I come get him. Usually, I feel obligated to get him up right away. He is screaming, after all. But sometimes, I let this yelling go on for awhile. Sometimes I can kind of pretend that it’s in my dream and attempt to let myself sleep for just another few minutes or so. I’m not looking forward to the day when Adam figures out how to escape from his crib and I won’t be able to leave him trapped in there while I pretend to not hear him.

As far as cooking goes, I tend to fall into these cycles. For a week or so, I’m really good about planning out meals. Budgeting my time to be able to have everything ready at the right time. Choosing semi-healthy options and making good use of the stuff we have in the refrigerator. Then, slowly, I become the laziest person in the world and all I want to do is order carry-out, usually something awful for me. It seems I’ve been stuck in that “eat whatever you want I don’t care I’m not going to the grocery store because even the thought of it makes me exhausted” phase of the cycle a little too long. For example, a couple of days ago we ran out of milk. By a couple of days ago, I mean it cooooould have been a week ago… Either way, I was planning on going to get a half gallon of milk, because we are leaving for vacation on Thursday and I didn’t want to get a full gallon of milk and then have it all go to waste while we are gone. Instead, I just never got any milk. So, turns out Adam isn’t having milk until we leave for our trip. It’s really not THAT bad, we all need to drink more water anyways, but I know it would be nice for him to have a cup or 2 when he wants some. We had people over a few days ago, and I somehow found a way to buy Capri Sun pouches for Adam and the other little girls coming over, but I didn’t remember to get milk. So for awhile Capri Sun was a nice alternative. It was the “flavored water” kind, not the juice kind, so it’s probably like suuuuper healthy anyways… Well, the Capri Sun is gone, and I’m running out of things besides water to bribe him with. I realized I’d hit a new low when the babysitter (a former student of my mom’s who had never babysat for us before) arrived last night. I was showing her around the house, explaining the boys’ routine and what to expect, and Adam brings me his cup and says, “more soda?” I nervously tried to explain that it was fine because it was just the “ginger beer” that Andy bought to make his Moscow Mules and that I was 95% sure it wasn’t alcoholic and that it’s only because I haven’t found the time to go out and buy more milk because I guess I just don’t love my child enough to walk my ass to the grocery store… (I’m sure she was mentally adding that to her “list of things not to do as a parent” while I kept talking). Another food-related “fail” happened last week when I asked Adam what he wanted for breakfast and he said, “pancakes and fruit snacks.” Sooooooo, that gives you an idea of just how much I’ve been “giving in” lately…

For the most part, Adam is doing really well. He is learning more and more all the time and is starting to enjoy interacting with Nick. I started him at a “parents’ day out” on Mondays, and he seems to really be enjoying it. I went through my own little guilt trip about that, since I didn’t HAVE to sign him up because I don’t work on Mondays and I just wanted him to get a chance to play with other kids (while I run all of the errands that are infinitely more impossible when Adam’s with me). So far I haven’t used my free time to binge watch Netflix, although I’m sure that’s coming. I keep asking Adam what friends he played with at “school” and he never remembers anyone’s names. To be fair, it’s not like I’ve introduced myself to any of the parents. “Hi, I’m the mom who brought the peanut butter and jelly sandwich to the ‘nut-free zone’ classroom and potentially endangered the life of a small child, would you like to go have mimosas and eat things with goat cheese in them?” (I’m not sure why I needed to include the goat cheese bit, it just seems like an honest thing to say. I fucking love goat cheese). I’m going to make so many friends, you guys.

Side note: Pretty much all of these “parenting fails” are Adam-related because, let’s be honest, Nick is too little and sweet (and dumb) to really be illustrating the consequences of my poor decisions. When he’s old enough to communicate how many brain cells I killed with my alcoholic breast milk, then I will dedicate a blog post to him.

While, many times, I can assign blame to myself for Adam’s shortcomings, sometimes he can just be a dick. He is starting to reeeeally enjoy bossing people around. My mom calls him Bruce (as in Bruce Springsteen, “the boss”…she really enjoys nicknames). And it’s not just the fact that he bosses people around, it’s also: 1. the tone of voice in which he does it, and 2. the things that he is requesting. For example, he really likes to tell me to stop doing whatever it is that I’m doing. Sometimes it’s not too ridiculous of a request, like if I’m washing dishes and he wants me to play with him so he’ll tell me to stop doing dishes. But sometimes he will say, “no, mama don’t sit!!” (in a super duper whiny voice). Or, “no, mama don’t eat!! (in the whiniest voice in the world). And I always think my reaction sounds so silly. “Yes. Mama is going to eat.” “Yes, mama is sitting.” Sometimes my insecurities will come through and I will think, “omg does he think I’m fat? Does he think I sit around too much and need to be more active?” Nah. At least it’s not, “no, mama don’t drink wine!!” Then I might feel the need to re-evaluate my choices. Maybe.

Some days, I feel like I’m just asking for it. I will run an extra errand or attempt some grand outing when 1 or both of the boys is already acting fussy. I joined the Brookside Mom’s Association awhile ago (because I’m not like a “regular” mom, I’m like a “cool” mom), so Adam has been going to play dates a couple times a month with other kids around his age. This morning, we went to the fire station. I knew Adam would be excited about this, so when he kept having tantrums, I told him if he didn’t _______ then we couldn’t go to the fire station. This worked for most of this morning, until we were almost ready to walk out the door. I should also mention that these play dates might be just as much for me as for him. Having a planned activity with people who have kid-proofed homes and don’t mind if things get spilled or if kids start screaming, it makes the day seem a little more manageable. So we are almost out the door and Adam keeps fussing about something and I say, “Oh, should we just not go to the fire station?” And he says, “no, don’t go.” (Shit, I didn’t plan for this). “Well, we’re going, so stop fussing.” (Effective parenting at its finest). Adam ended up being ok for most of the visit, although he just wanted to run around everywhere. At one point they were getting ready to back up the fire truck so they could show the kids the ladder, and Adam started running around the other side of the truck (as the guy was starting to back up). There were 2 fire fighters who saw him and I saw them see him and walk after him and I had baby Nick’s stroller, so I started to walk around to the other side, but mostly I just assumed that a fire fighter had Adam. Which he DID. But I prrrrobably should have been a little more urgent in checking on him. Once the truck was out in the driveway, all the kids wanted to go check it out. But it was really sunny and Nick was sleeping, so I didn’t want to bring his stroller outside and risk him waking up. So, I just left him in his stroller in the shaded garage area while we went outside. To be fair, we were at a fire station. Aren’t fire stations “safe places” where you can just drop off your baby and know that it will be taken care of? I think that means I can just leave my kids wherever I want in the fire station and they will be fine. I’m pretty sure that’s what that means.

In addition to bad parenting days, sometimes I feel like I just have bad life days. We have been really loving our new house, although I feel so much more attached to it and have this urge to make sure everything is clean and working all the time. I’ve pretty much given up on protecting the floors from Lola’s scratches, although it hasn’t been quite so bad lately. I try to keep up with the gardening, now that things seem fairly manageable. And I discovered a couple of weeks ago that we had ants coming into our kitchen nook and mud room. Fucking ants. Luckily, they didn’t really go into the kitchen itself and didn’t get into any of our food or anything, but they did think Lola’s food was the most delicious thing in all of Ant Land (I assume that’s what ants call their surroundings. Ant Land). So the good news is, most of the ants are gone. After a series of throwing things out and buying ant traps and moving the ant traps and buying more ant traps and spraying the ants and smashing the ants and keeping all the food (especially sweet food) cleaned up at all times… But I will tell you, I feel like I discovered some dark part of my soul when I started killing these ants. I consider myself a fairly humane person. I became vegetarian for 3.5 years after watching “Avatar”, so, I think that earns me a complimentary PETA t-shirt or something. But when it comes to these ants, I will smash them with my bare hands and I will love it. I developed a hatred for them and I hope that all of Ant Land knows that I will not hesitate to smash all of the ants who enter into this house!! (please imagine my voice slowly crescendoing throughout that entire sentence). I think you get the idea.

One last life “fail” before I tell you too much about how awful I am and this stops being humorous and you start getting actually concerned… I hate shaving. I’m a hygienic person in that I try not to smell too bad. If I didn’t have short hair that looked terrifying most mornings, I probably wouldn’t shower daily. But I certainly do not shave every time I take a shower. And even when I do, there are certain hairs, or patches of hair, that I never ever seem to get. For example, there is some area on the back of my thighs that I will catch sight of sometimes if I’m in a swimsuit or something, and it’s just a bunch of long-ass blonde hairs. I honestly don’t know if they’ve ever been shaved. It seems impossible that they are just always there, but they are. The good news is, I’ve found someone dumb enough to marry me, so he’s stuck with my hairy leg patches (and weird post-pregnancy body in general). However, other people don’t know how gross I am, so I try to trick them for as long as possible. I was supervising a music therapy student a couple of weeks ago, and before the session, she made a comment about how she liked my shoes. I thanked her and we started talking about what kind of style you would call the shoes (all the while, looking down at my shoes and the area surrounding my shoes). As the conversation continued, I saw 2, long, dark ankle hairs, just asking to be seen. They were right above my sock line and as soon as I saw them I got this wave of adrenaline thinking, “Omg she saw them. She saw my ankle hairs and now she knows. How will she take me seriously as a music therapist if she knows I can’t even manage to shave the long ‘man hairs’ on my ankle?!” I guess if she saw them she didn’t say anything. I’m so excited for long socks and pants weather.

At the end of the day, I still feel like I’m doing an ok job at life. I mean, my children are still alive, so that’s something. Sure, sometimes I don’t filter my language and yell obscenities at the squirrels who dig up my plants, only to hear Adam echo, “fucking squirrels!” At least he knows what a squirrel is (I’m aware of how far of a stretch this justification is). What I’m saying is, it’s all ok. It will all be ok. And I honestly have the other people in my life to thank for that. I have so much help all of the time. In fact, just today I had one of those “you are such a spoiled brat” moments. Usually on Tuesdays, my parents take Adam overnight because they watch the boys on Wednesdays while I work, and it’s 1000x easier to get ready in the morning with just Nick. But tonight they are going to the Royals game (I’m so jealous, by the way). And Andy is on call, so he won’t be home until 8:30 at the earliest. So, of course, I asked my sisters to come watch the game at my house (aka HELP ME!!!), and I’m already fussy because they have other things to do. I mean, how DARE they lead their own lives when I clearly need someone to help me take care of my children. How will I survive on my own?!?!

But seriously, who wants to come over tonight…?