Confessions of a Terrible Stay-at-Home Mom: Vol. 6
in Must Be Nice on October 30, 2016
I haven’t done a confession in a while, so here goes:
I have come to the conclusion that I like my kids. I realize that some of you reading this will shake your heads and think that I am a terrible parent for even contemplating to admit anything less than a super-human level of admiration for my offspring.
Allow me to clarify.
I never said, nor did I imply, that I do not love my kids. I always love my kids. In fact, many of you reading this blog know me on a personal level, and have had the pleasure to witness firsthand the Mama Bear that comes out when I feel or perceive that one of my kids has been threatened by an outside force. But, truth-be-told, sometimes our children are just not very likeable.
Other mothers would warn me of the terrible teenage years, and how my children would gradually (or in some cases suddenly) pull away from me. They will become moody and brooding, sullen-faced monsters. They will want nothing to do with me and will forcefully move through my house using a series of grunts, moans, and hand gestures as primitive means of communication.
Well, I am in the dead center of the teenage inferno, and so far, I can report that my children are not only still speaking in complete sentences—their vocabulary is actually excelling.
Not one of my three children have pulled away. They engage me in, gasp, daily conversations. All three remain affectionate toward me and my husband. Toward each other? Well, that’s another story for another time. My daughter wants to get BFF bracelets for the two of us. She is 14. I told her, I could not be her best friend right now; I still had to be her mother. But I promised to save that very special spot in my life just for her in a couple of years. Melt my heart.
My children are almost exactly one year apart. eff and I had A LOT of babies in the house at the same time. That is a LOT of diapers. A LOT of crying for NO reason. A LOT of runny noses. A LOT of teeth coming in at the SAME TIME. A LOT of sleepless night, as in YEARS of sleepless nights. In short, it was a LOT of chaos crammed into a few short years.
There were plenty of hugs and kisses. Plenty of deep belly-laughs. Plenty of fun to fill the days, but there were also days that I straight-up do not remember.
As our kids grow up, they are learning how to be people. They are learning about the social hierarchy in which they have been born. Their entire life and world is brand-new. This is an extreme learning curve for the kid AND the parent. So, yes, there were days—lots of them—when I didn’t especially like my kids. They were demanding and unreasonable pint-sized dictators, with a seemingly relentless store of energy.
Now, things are a bit more mellow. Only a bit. We still have PLENTY of activity in this house. The kids still rise up and attempt to mount a revolution from time to time. I would be worried if they didn’t. But, it’s not like it was. They have somehow through the years, morphed into miniature humans, with their own thoughts and emotions.
To be honest, it weirds me out at times to think about them being babies compared to what they are now. My 15-year-old is bigger than my husband.
Parenting is hard. It is not for the faint hearted or the wishy-washy. There will be days when hiding in the closet with a nice glass of wine seems like your only option (anyone who has been on my Facebook page knows that happened TWICE last week). Don’t give up. We will get through this. It feels good to like to your own kids. Not to brag or anything, but I really do have great kids.
Okay, maybe I’m bragging a little, but if you had my kids, you’d be bragging, too.
Here’s hoping your day is something to brag about!
Dallas