Alright, so once again its been forever since I’ve posted anything. I haven’t touched my sewing machine in who knows how long… We live in a small apartment and I had my machine set up at our kitchen table, and when the table was needed, the sewing machine was put away and hasn’t been brought out since. Hopefully within the next couple years we will be out of this apartment and the Bay Area, and somewhere where I can set up that stupid machine and really get on teaching myself how not only to quilt, but finish that baby quilt I started some time ago.
But any who, the real reason I came to sit down today and attempt to write something while my daughter watches Moana, is because I feel as though I need to get a few things off my chest.
Being a parent is hard.
Like: pull-your-hair-out-while-sitting-in-a-corner-rocking-back-and-forth-ugly-crying hard.
I love my daughter. She’s the most incredible thing that has ever come in to my life. She’s smart, she’s funny, she’s empathetic way beyond her three years… not a single day has gone by without her literally blowing my mind. However, I also haven’t had many days where I have not seriously considered posting an ad on CraigsList along the lines of “Healthy 3 yo, perfect kidneys. $50 OBO. Will not deliver.” Obviously I would NEVER in a million years, but man… sometimes this kid just down right sucks. Its like she’s broken or something, or possessed…
She has this way of fighting me no matter what the situation be, and trying to fight with a three year old is like trying to fight with tiny drunk human. No matter what I say, or how sound my logic may be… she comes back with a “nuh uh,” and the argument is lost. She has selective hearing to the point where I can loudly call her name repeatedly from 5 feet away and get absolutely no response from her, but the second I start quietly opening anything in the kitchen, its as though her hearing turns supersonic and she can hear me from a different room, in her fort and under the 9 blankets she’s covered herself in on a 100 degree summer day. The kid can scream like the dopey hot girl in any and all 90’s horror films, and it honestly sounds like I’m trying to murder her all because I accidentally knocked over her Barbie who was having a tea party with her bear in the middle of the hallway. Speaking of which, this kid has too many toys. I try to downsize them, I really do; unfortunately, she’s one of the few kids I know who actually play with EVERYTHING she owns. Yeah, that Dollar Tree mermaid she got after her first dentist appointment that’s constantly losing all of its extremities? She’d miss it. The rubber duck she got out of a claw machine two years ago? She’d notice. My house looks as though a toy bomb went off every hour, and I swear the more I try to pick up and organize, the worse it gets. I’m a neat freak, and living with a three year old is driving me bonkers.
I do love this kid though, so much so that I could literally explode if I loved her anymore. She’s definitely put us through the ringer though. From her complicated and terrifying birth, to the Kawasaki’s Diseases when she was fifteen months old, to all the scrapes, bumps, bruises… This kid is tough and has definitely come out on top. Now I’m dealing with her starting pre-preschool on the 6th of September and I can’t even think about it without tearing up. She just turned three in May, yet I feel as though she was only born a year ago… where did the time go? It seems as though the days are long and just drag and drag, but the months are SO short…
I’m excited to see where pre-preschool takes her. She already knows all her letters by sight, can write most of them, and is in the process of learning the sounds they make. She can spell and write her own name, along with a handful of other words, and has another handful of words she can read. She’s counting to 29 on her own (if you give her 30, she can get to 39, and give her 40 etc…). She just about has the days of the week down (thanks to “I got a feelin'” by: Black Eyed Peas), she’s beginning to understand ultra basic math… basically, the kid is freaking smart. Smart, but still learning how to get along with other kids. She’s never been in daycare, or around other kids for long periods of time. Sure she has cousins her age, but we don’t see them that often. She’s around a lot of adults and that does take a toll out on her sociability around other kids.
Anyways… what I’m trying to get at, is that parenting is difficult. A lot more so than any on ever told me it would be. Nobody ever said that sometimes you seriously wonder why the hell you ever did this to yourself. Nobody ever said that sometimes you seriously question if you’re really suited for this. Nobody ever said that being a parent sometimes makes you feel like a bigger failure than anything else in life ever has before. Nobody ever said that it was okay to talk shit about your kid to other parents (this is the only thing that keeps me sane sometimes, truly expressing how obnoxious my kid is to other people who completely understand). Nobody ever said you don’t have to be the perfect pintrest mom. There is so much judgment about being a good parent that for a while it was driving me crazy. It wasn’t until I realized that as long as I did my best, I was doing great. My kid can be an angel, but she can also be an asshole… That doesn’t necessarily reflect my parenting skills as much as it does my three year old being a three year old.
I make sure to read to her, spend time with her, we do crafts on a regular basis… but she also has her own Kindle and watches Netflix. Its all about balance. Once you find the balance that works for you, life is so much easier. At least until their next melt down, and speaking of which, its bath time for this toddler!
If you’re reading this, and you’re having one of those “pull-your-hair-out-while-sitting-in-a-corner-rocking-back-and-forth-ugly-crying” moments… feel free to share it with me, or anybody… because you’re not alone, and its better to sit and laugh about your kid being an asshole, rather than cry because you feel alone in thinking you’re parenting wrong…
Hope you’re all having a good week, and keeping your head’s up!
lisssakathryn 