Category — Attempts at Parenting

My kids are wonderful.

No, more than wonderful. They are talented, vibrant, hilarious, engaging, unique, capable, intelligent, endearing. They are my world, my soul, my heart, my breath. They have changed my life and every ounce of my being. I am a better person for having them in my life. I would do anything to help them fulfil their dreams.

So why the hell do I have critical thoughts about them?

I get impatient and angry when they don’t listen to me. If one of them has an off day, I say they were “bad.” I expect them to act like adults because I’ve “taught them” and they “know better.” What’s really shitty is when I find myself sometimes mentally negating something positive someone says about them. “Yeah, they’re great little girls, but . . . ”

I know I’m not the only one who does this, but I don’t understand why. Why do we feel so safe to degrade those we feel closest to? Why do we feel okay hurting the people we love the most?

I’m supposed to be their biggest cheerleader, their soft place to fall, their source of undying enthusiasm. Why is it so hard to do that?

Of course Elise and Althea have behaviors I’m not wild about and that need some work over time, but I have to constantly remind myself that they are two years old. Amaia has been on this earth for a matter of weeks. They’re all doing exactly what they’re supposed to be doing. What exactly are my expectations of these little people, anyway?

Then again, what exactly are my expectations of myself? To be perfect? To never lose my cool?

I don’t always give a voice to the criticisms I feel toward my children. Most of the time, I bite my tongue because I know that I’ll regret it and I know I don’t truly feel it. But the fact that these feelings even cross my mind riddles me with guilt and shame.

What worries me the most about critical thinking toward my kids is that I don’t want them to grow up and feel that they could never please me. That I loved them but . . .

Every morning, I wake up and tell myself that today will be a good day. Every night, I go to bed and wonder how I could have done better.

Althea, Elise, Amaia. I will always want you to be the best people you can be, but . . . I love each of you just as you are.

You have two-year-old kids and you have no clue how to fold up a single umbrella stroller. Because you’ve NEVER USED ONE.

Seriously, how do you do it?

It was only a matter of time.

Chris and I both curse freely and frequently. I’ve heard the saying that people who curse a lot do so because they don’t have the vocabulary to express themselves through appropriate channels — in other words, people who swear are stupid.

If that’s the case, I’m dumb as shit, yo.

So, considering the girls repeat every other word they hear, it was only a matter of time, really, before someone finally picked up on a four-letter flyer or two.

Last week, Chris and I were chatting while the girls played next to us. I don’t know what he was talking about, but he casually dropped the F bomb.

“Yeah, so yadda yadda yadda and I was like ‘What the fuck?’”

Out of the entire sentence, Elise heard the word “Fuck.” And she repeated it.

“Fuck!”

Chris shot me a look. “Did she just say ‘fuck?’”

Again, in an adorable pipsqueak voice, Elise repeated, “Fuck!”

Well yeah, genius, I think she DID just say “fuck.”

Elise continued pushing her die-cast Thomas the Tank Engine toy around on the coffee table. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

Suppressing a bit of laughter, I glared at Chris. “Babe, you have to be careful what you say. They’re repeating everything.”

“Elise, are you saying ‘fuck?’ Fuck is the most versatile word you’ll ever learn.”

Uh. Not helping, Chris.

With this, Elise started really enunciating. “Fu. Ck. Fu. Ck. Fu. Ck. Fu. Ck.” No smiling, no laughter, no realization whatsoever of what she was saying or our reaction to it. Elise had discovered the F word and she was determined to do it justice, to pronounce it correctly.

For the next 10 minutes, she dropped the F bomb no fewer than 80 times, practicing the play of consanants and vowels, exploring the the friction of the initial f, the subsequent hardness of the ck sound.

I’ve been trying to teach this child “please” and “thank you” for no less than a year. Nothing. She hears the word “fuck” one time and is immediately documenting its etymology.

I have to admit, though, she was doing a great job of pronouncing it.

Chris and I spent our first night away from the girls in almost two years (well, three if you count the pregnancy itself, right?). We went to Gainesville to watch the University of Florida’s homecoming game (wherein we proceeded to post an embarrassing loss to a crap team on our own home field on homecoming weekend, making for a third-straight loss this season and our first such losing streak in decades. But that’s another story.).

It looked something like this:

I ate Cracker Jack. I cheered and chomped and (carefully) hopped up and down for our single touchdown. I sang our school song. I felt young again, like I was on a fun date with my husband and some friends.

Last night, we slept in a bed without a monitor on the nightstand. When I stirred at 7 a.m., I rolled back over and slowly drifted back to dreamland.

Then, I slept until 9:30 a.m.

That made for a total of nine-and-a-half hours of sleep. All at once.

Do you have any idea what this amount of rest feels like? Let me tell you, it’s fucking INCREDIBLE.

Did you know that rest makes you more productive, energetic, patient and happy? I know, crazy! But it’s true.

My girls did great with their grandparents and made me so proud at how wonderful they are. I got a chance to miss them for a little bit and appreciate their warm, happy little toddler hugs and kisses when we finally got back this afternoon.

Okay, so they actually totally ignored us when we got back because Yo Gabba Gabba was on and, when faced with a choice between DJ Lance Rock and the crew versus their parents, the girls will always choose DJ Lance Rock because he is awesome.

I’ll admit it — I’m an instruction-manual reader. I love me some instruction manuals. I read instructions for shit that is completely obvious, just in case there are some special tips or interesting bits of new information to learn.

And it’s not just instruction manuals. I read the backs of shampoo bottles, the warning labels on bath mats and the ingredients lists on cans of soda. I even watched the DVD that came with my last washing machine.

What can I say? I like feeling informed and I love to read.

When it comes to parenting, then, it’s odd that my shelves aren’t piled high with parenting manuals.

Sure, I have a few books. One is a gigantic guide to the first five years, which I got free as part of my enrollment in a grocery store’s baby club. (Hey, good coupons, yo.) It’s in a magazine holder in my bathroom so I can flip through it on the can — after I’m done reading Allure, Newsweek, Fitness and Entertainment Weekly, of course. I also bought a book for the first year, which I stopped reading about 12 weeks into it. More recently, I picked up a used copy of “What to Expect During the Toddler Years” at the Friends of the Library used bookstore, which I have opened approximately twice. It’s now in an unlabeled box in the garage.

I think I got disillusioned with parenting-type manuals after reading two sleep training books early on. When the babies weren’t following the directions outlined in the books, I don’t know. It kind of turned me off. The experience made me realize that I’m dealing with human beings, not ceiling fans or curtain rods. So, rather than flip through books for general insight as I normally would, I have banned parenting books altogether.

The problem now is, I have no fucking clue what I’m doing. Seriously, zero. None. Winging it 100%. This is making things more difficult because the girls are CRAZY.

OH. MY. GOD. How does anyone survive this??? Why do people continue to have children after experiencing the toddler years? Had I known things were going to be like this, I would seriously have considered having my uterus soldered to the Brooklyn Bridge or some other high-traffic thoroughfare.

Yeah, it’s the terrible twos, blah blah blah. Which is stupid to say because the behavior is completely normal for a two year old. It’s just holy-shit MADDENING for an adult.

Plus, there’s TWO of them.

And I’m PREGNANT.

This SUCKS.

I try so hard. Every day, I wake up and pull out my best Jack Donaghy: “Just do it. Is it in you? I’m lovin’ it. Chin up, positive attitude, let’s get ‘em you magnificent son of a bitch! LET’S DO THIS THING!”

Some days are good. Those are rare — whole days that are good. Sometimes we have a good morning. Sometimes a good evening. Okay, I lie. We never have a good evening. Sometimes it’s just an hour here or there that is good. The rest is just…hard.

I feel like everyone subscribes to some sort of parenting “camp.” Which one do I belong in? Attachment parenting? Play-based learning? Reason with them? Zero-tolerance policy? Open-door policy? Don’t ask don’t tell?

See? I don’t even know the terminology.

So, my incredibly smart and savvy reader(s). Whatcha got for me? Will I make it? Should I RTFM finally? What do you or did you do to get through this stage?

Wait. This is just a stage, right?!?

Sunday morning reading time with Daddy. This makes me happy.

You know what makes me sad, though? Thinking about losing this.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m getting excited for the new baby and am feeling much better about her and the pregnancy overall. But during those moments of utter contentment with my husband and two girls, I get intensely sad at the loss of our little family of four.

I like our family. We understand each other. It’s comfortable. It’s familiar. It’s fun. I like how we’re figuring out how to communicate with each other. I like the age the girls are at, I love their little voices, their silly words. I love the time we spend together.

I also like sleeping through the night, daily routines, children who know how to walk, three-hour naps and not being outnumbered.

Some of my friends with a toddler and an infant used to ask how the hell I survive having twins. I would tell them honestly that the thought of trying to handle a toddler and a newborn sounded MUCH more difficult than having twins.

The thought of trying to handle TWIN toddlers and a newborn, however, is a level of difficulty I can’t even conjure in my worst nightmares.

It’s almost laughable.

Today, I’m 28 weeks pregnant and so marks the official start of my third trimester. I’m starting to get worried about how we’ll handle having three kids. Specifically, how am I going to handle having three kids, since it’s mostly just me with them?

What do I do when Althea goes tearing down the street by herself while I’m trying to unload groceries from the van?

What happens when, three minutes into story time at the library, Elise decides she’s over it and she starts yanking on my hand, shouting “NO! NO! NO!”

I’m also afraid I’ll forget someone at home. Or in a shopping cart. Or that I’ll accidentally drop the baby out of her sling while chasing after one of the girls.

The logistics of everyday life is going to get complicated.

Kids running barefoot outside in the rain…

wearing only diapers…

and feeding them forkfuls of dinner as they go tearing by…

That’s not redneck, is it?

I hesitate to write this post because it implicates me as a terrible mom, but it’s important enough that I have to share.

We bathe the girls in one tub of water. When Chris isn’t home to help, I’ll take one child out of the tub and plop her on the counter to put on her lotion and brush her teeth while the other child plays in the tub. Then I put the dry baby on the ground and extract baby #2 from the tub, letting the water drain while I do lotion and teeth for her.

Tonight, I had Elise on the counter while Althea was in the tub. The bathroom is fairly small, so the tub is no more than two feet from the sink. Elise was being stubborn about brushing teeth, so I was really absorbed in the task.

I don’t know what happened, but Althea was suddenly coughing up water, struggling to gasp for breath while sputtering and choking  in the water.

She was submerged under the water. I don’t know how much time had elapsed. Maybe it was only for a second. Maybe it was three seconds. There were only three inches of water in the tub. Maybe she couldn’t really have drowned. Maybe she could have. But she was clearly choking on water that she’d inhaled while I was two feet away from her.

I WAS TWO FEET AWAY FROM HER. In the same room. Alive and conscious and sober and able to pay close attention to her, but I wasn’t.

I snatched her up and held her body close while her lungs struggled to expel water and inhale oxygen. I let my mind go there — her life, my life, flashing before me in an instant, overwhelmed with fear and gratitude that the unthinkable hadn’t happened. God and Christ and every other deity existed in that moment because my child was alive.

I don’t know if I’m overreacting, but what happened was fucking terrifying enough for me to have learned a horrible lesson:

The instant bath time is over, DRAIN THE TUB.

Do NOT assume that being in the same room means you’re paying attention.

I thought I was ultra cautious with the girls around water. I’ve never even left them unattended for four seconds to run into their room for a washcloth. I’m just too paranoid.

So what the fuck happened tonight???

People, you CANNOT be too careful around water when children are involved. In my mind, my 20-month-old girls are big and strong and smart enough to extract themselves from a couple of inches of water. Apparently not. Don’t fall into that same trap!

Along with my conviction to cook at home most of the time (which, by the way, has been mostly successful so far), I have declared war on baby speak.

The girls grunt, whine and cry when they want something. They’ll run to the fridge and cry while trying desperately to pry it open. They’ll let out a little “Nnn! Nnnn!” when they want us to do or get something. Then we spend the next eight minutes trying to guess what they want.

Maybe I’m asking too much, but I would think at almost 20 months old, my kids could respond to very simple sentences with familiar words by saying or nodding “yes” or “no.”

Here’s how it goes:

The girls run to the fridge and pull at the door while screaming/crying. I walk over and say:

“Quieres leche?” (“Do you want milk?”)

Blank stare.

“Quieres leche?”

Stare.

“Quieres LECHE?”

Stare.

“LECHE? LECHE? Queires? LECHE?”

Stare.

“QUIERES???? LECHE????? LECHE????”

Stare.

Sigh. Why is this not working?

Take out the sippy cups.

“QUIERES???? LECHE?????” while emphatically nodding and saying “Sí? Sí? Quieres leche???”

Stare.

“QUIERES???? LECHE????? SI??? SI????”

Stare.

Take out the carton of milk.

“QUIERES???? LECHE?????”

Stare.

“SI?? SI??? QUIERES???? LECHE????? SI???”

Stare.

Finally yesterday, I held onto their little skulls and nodded their heads up and down while saying “Sí! Sí!”

I then repeated “Quieres leche?”

To which they each grabbed hold of their chins and pushed their little heads up and down.

That’ll show you and your idiotic yes/no questions.

I also noticed that they can point to all their body parts when you ask them “Where is your hair?” Etc. And they will point to a baby doll’s hair and say the word for it. But when you point to somebody’s hair and ask, “What is this?” they don’t respond.

I don’t know anything about language development. Am I expecting too much in either case (responding to simple yes/no questions or using an existing vocabulary word to respond to a “What is this?” question). I try not to think about this stuff too much — why the hell am I wanting them to talk, anyway? — but I really  have no clue what I’m doing over here.

I have a serious, non-ironic-about-gender-stereotypes-etc., question:

How do you run your household?

You give me a single project and tell me to own and love it, I can do it. But give me a department to run and it’s going under.

The problem here is that running an house is like managing a department of some sort. Maybe not anything super important, like IT or accounting. But something like …. human resources? Because we’re humans and we’re like resources?

I have no idea. But this department is definitely not meeting quotas and whatnot.

The main topic of this post is cooking. Didn’t see that one coming, did you? We blow a depressing amount of money on take-out food. The girls almost always eat at home, but by the time they’re in bed and the day is done, I’m beat. I go through fits and spurts, but for the past few months we’ve been eating out probably four to five times a week.

(And don’t tell me to eat with my kids. Who the hell over the age of eight eats dinner at 5 p.m.???)

Anyhow. That’s a lot of money. And money is something we definitely don’t have to burn. Especially since we’re planning to finally take our honeymoon in two years, and by golly, that’s one project I WILL manage to achieve.

Vacation. Vacation. Vacation.

Oh, and the whole short-selling-the-house and three-kids-on-one-income things. Those are a real financial drain, too.

I’m trying to say that I’ve rededicated myself to cooking at home again, and I didn’t set my sights low, either. I decided to plan out a month’s worth of meals.

Note the key words there: Plan. In advance. A month.

Naturally, I don’t expect myself to actually succeed at this for a full 30 days, but I’m going to try, by god.

Vacation. Vacation. Vacation.

So, back to my question: How the hell do you do this? I’ve planned four days so far and I’m exhausted. How do you do that whole thing where you buy your groceries once a week and know exactly what to buy and the chicken lasts three days for three different meals and there are coupons and stuff?

I go to the store as often as four days a week to buy food as needed and there’s never anything to eat here except 18 bags of chip crumbs, some dented cans of crushed pineapple and three gallons of olive oil.

If I can make dinner with these ingredients, let me know. Otherwise, share your household management tips. Please. Even if you don’t have any. A mutual lack of housewifery skills will at least make me feel better.