Friday, May 23, 2014

No Bad Days For Me!

        News flash: Someone has finally discovered the allusive Parenting Manual!
         It's true. And somewhere, in that unofficial, impossibly hard to find parenting handbook, there is a rule about bad days.
       Apparently, when your a mother of more then one child, your not allowed to have a bad day. Seriously. No bad days ever. Because your a mom. Because you decided to have a child. You signed up for this. This role as mother was a choice, and you made it. More importantly then that, you chose to do it more then once. And if by some chance you forget that rule and have a bad day, the punishment will be that everyone, everywhere will automatically place all blame for your bad mood on your children.
      Proof:
     After a long week of one person after another coming down with the flu (including myself), after the tenth time cleaning up vomit, I allowed myself a bad day. A grumpy, don't get dressed or showered, screw doing the dishes kind of day. As someone randomly stops by for a visit, I hear my punishment being handed down. "Well, this is what you signed up."
      I know, I know. One random event doesn't prove that rule, right?
     As March rolls around, John and I join the millions of Americans, parents and non-parents alike, who begrudgingly start the process of filing tax returns. As I make a simple joke about the groans I hear from John who is working hard on his computer crunching numbers, my punishment comes flying at me out of nowhere, "How bad could it possibly be for you guys at tax time, you have 6 kids?!"
    Stupid me. Obviously I deserved that one.
    8 months after one of our little ones, who was still getting up every 3 hours all night long, I mentioned how worn out I felt. "At this point, you should know what to expect."
    The worst is really that anytime I mention being tired, the blame automatically goes to my kids.
   Why? Why is it automatically assumed that it's because of my kids that I am tired? Can't I be tired because I am coming down with something? Can't I be tired because I have a unnatural amount of weeds growing in my garden and spending a whole day hoeing wears a girl out? Maybe I stayed up too late watching every episode of Merlin available on Netflix? I am married to hot young Italian, maybe he chases me around the house all night long? Those are all reasonable assumptions! Why does it have to be blamed on me being a mom.
         I should be allowed to detest doing laundry. That hate came long before having kids, just ask my mom! It was one of my weekly chores. Quite frankly, as a sister doing her teenage brothers laundry would make any person hate doing the wash! I hated it before kids, I loath it after kids. Not my kids fault. I just don't like stinky drawers.
     If your one of those lucky people who happen to catch me in the grocery store with all my kids (which is always), that face I am making is not their fault. I have RBF. Google it. It's real and I have it.
Resting Bitchy Face.
      Again, not my kids fault. I blame my mom. And my Granny. Heck, I blame my great-grandmother. Great ladies, bitchy faces. It's genetic. We just naturally look pissed. We were born needing Botox and too smart to go get it.
  I could also be making that face because I just got asked for the tenth time that day "Are they all yours?" or the ultra pathetically sympathetic ,"God bless you"  with the head the head shake. Seriously?!
 This lady nailed it. I usually get all of these during one grocery shopping trip.



What kind of face would you make if someone asked you crazy personal and unnecessary questions in the middle of a grocery store?

 



And sometimes, my bad days are because I'm a mom.
   I am not a morning person. Never have been, never will be, and yet, somehow, I have been blessed with two little boys who think 5:30 (no matter the bedtime) is a great time of day.






Sometimes, cleaning up spit-up and poo isn't as exciting as it should be. Sometimes, I should be allowed to complain about having to load the dishwasher for the 3rd time that day, and not get told, "It comes with the territory."
Sometimes teaching long division to one child and the alphabet to to another while trying to ignore Daniel Tiger singing in the background and chasing your 2 year old up to the toilet so he doesn't spray all over the kitchen, and giving fashion advice to your super-sensitive child and giving the evil eye to the four year old for carrying the baby by one arm, and getting pelted in the back of the head with a Nerf gun, all while trying to pour milk into a baby bottle, is a little bit much.
     I'm allowed to have bad days!
Maybe it's just that people have forgotten how to give pep talks. Maybe people have lost their ability to sympathize. Maybe people haven't seen the movie Bambi.



1 comment:

  1. YOU CAN DO IT! I have two girls at home (they're old now, but that has it's own challenges) and I'm a preschool teacher. Overall the days are fast and fun, but sometimes, when it's a full moon I look at my class and think "what is going on. No, you can't eat your friend, and no, glue is not shampoo" Keep on girl!
    -Rachael
    http://www.childrenofamerica.com/locations-hockessin.cfm

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