Relentlessness

Inalways guessed that the biggest challenge for me in parenthood would be the sheer relentlessness of it. Unlike many of my other guesses I was absolutely right.

I'm finding myself becoming weirdly unreasonable with Andrew because it feels like it is constantly something. And for some reason I'm like "dude, I kinda thought we'd figured most stuff out for you. Pull it together THREE YEAR OLD" (sarcasm font used)

Last night* was one of those relentless ones.

Michael was out of town and this is the email I sent him:
Oh man, I was a mom disaster last night. It was clearly my fault because when Ali was asking how it was going yesterday I was too positive. I was saying what a great week we were having. Andrew has honestly been a total delight and drop offs have been good. Checklist and bed time were awesome on Monday and Tuesday. But man I totally failed last night.

After I put Miranda down, he ate cereal and had two glasses of water (foreshadowing) and we chatted before bed. Checklist was great but then you witnessed the “I don’t want to be alone”/”what if I’m scared”/etc. I thought talking to you had helped but no, we tried starting over with checklist stories and trying again, I sat and sang to him until he seemed calm and sleepy- all fails . Finally I turned on his light and said he was free to play and I was going to bed.(here is where you might be annoyed at me if this bites us in the ass but bear with me) I left our bedroom door open and I was lying in bed and I see a little face in the hall and I told him to come lay with me. Truth be told, it helped me sleep better and we were both out like lights. Until 3am when he wakes me to say he wet his pants- and our bed.

I got him new jammies and told him he would have to lay in his bed. He starts SCREAMING as I walk back to our room. I definitely yelled and asked a dumb question to a tired 3.5 year old ( “what do you want us to do Andrew?”, which he had no idea, he was as tired as I was and frustrated too.) He screams some more until Miranda starts screaming. Then I cried. I sat in his chair and cried. He sat with me for a few minutes then laid down, he seemed a little sad and maybe confused at why I was crying. I did apologize and tell him that I was tired and sad he couldn’t get to sleep. He was quiet, Miranda had settled back down and then I was up feeling like SHIT for about an hour (interrupted by one call for me saying he heard a loud sound). Then I slept next to his pee.

We were out of milk and I wanted a fresh start this morning- so we got up and dressed and out the door in 15 minutes and went and had Starbucks for breakfast. They were two of the happiest, cutest, chattiest kids ever and it was lovely and wonderful. Drop off was great. I went home and showered and was to work without trouble.

I’m not sure the moral of that story. I suck? I don’t try hard enough and I suck? I try, but still suck? I try, but still suck but hopefully he knows that even if I suck I love him?

Ugh.

Since then he is now apparently afraid to be alone in bed.



Things were going great! He even invented blackberry tacos.


And it makes me totally sad for him and I can actually totally relate to that feeling.

But it also is an example of how, even when the hard work fades to the background and you are just in the moment enjoying things something will pop up to show you that this gig is truly never ending.

I'm not handling this one well (mostly because it is sucking the life out of me to spend the 1-2 hours we have after they presumably are in bed dealing with this rather than get a little alone/couple/housework/paperwork time). Luckily Michael is handling it with a cooler kinder head- I handled our last crisis so I don't feel entirely terrible about this.

But yeah. Parenting is fucking relentless. And like aging that is better than the alternative.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
*this was last Wednesday so now we are a week into this situation