It’s annoying waking up to anything other than birds softly chirping and sunlight beaming through your bedroom window. Three babies make sure I don’t wake up like Cinderella, but go through my day like her; housework and babysitting. The twins are at the best age right now, though. They are on an awesome eat, sleep, and chill schedule that I can only hope lasts another few months before toddlerdom strikes. Getting through the toddler years deserves a reward. I guess the reward is being parent to a nicely developing child. I mean more like an award – or a parade. The honoured parents wear crowns, drawn through a crowd by unicorn and carriage, everyone cheers. Now, that’s an acknowledgement! Which we will never get because basically everyone is parenting and there isn’t enough money or unicorns for all that. In reality, the best thing would be that once in a while your family calls you up and says You deserve a break, a whole day and evening to yourself. We got the kids. I’d be all like Goodbye, kids! Hello Universe, Spa and Shopping! I’ve missed you! I’m still here underneath the baggy clothes, bad coif, broken nails, and body hair. The universe would be all like You haven’t changed a bit. How rude! But I get it. Anyway, I finally caught a break during the week now that my toddler is back to daycare. At first I had it in my mind to never put him in daycare because ever since before he was born I thought the best person to care for my child was me. Care for – yes. Entertain – no. At his age, the best thing for him is to be with other kids. Now I’m at the more zen end of the mommy spectrum. I have more moments of inner peace to be proud of and less incidences of If another cheerio hits the ground, I’m going to go mortal kombat on you! It was bittersweet taking him to daycare though. On the one hand, it’s healthier for everyone, mentally not physically. Physically we all got sick as hell and I’m sure there will be more Kleenex, Salinex, and Tylenol to bulldoze through in the future. The bittersweet part is that I was happy to send him out into the world but also sad to let him out of our bird nest. I wanted to send him off with sound parental advice like Don’t wipe your snots on your sleeve, cover your mouth when you sneeze, keep your diapers on. I also wanted to make sure he has all that good worldly advice like Be kind and compassionate, share with others, snitches get stitches. For now, I’d love if he stopped throwing a crying fit every time we drop him off. I hope we are at least getting somewhere with potty training over there. We are at a highly unhygienic stage where he’s sticking his hand in his diaper. Once he horrified me afterwards by pointing at me with a special brown surprise stuck to his finger. I still try to encourage manners and kindness anyway because even though I don’t know when we will see our efforts shine through, I’m pretty sure we have to start them young. I have to always try very hard, because I’m his mom. It doesn’t matter if I feel like peasant Cinderella or princess Cinderella or the evil stepmother, I’m his mom – to have and to hold, kicking and screaming, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish forever and ever. I got you, babe!
Tag: featured
No Bad Moms Here Part One
I can only speak for myself but it seems like most parents I know were taught the same things for how to take care of a newborn baby. We are all schooled by nurses, doctors, the internet, and our own moms. We get home with a plan: feed baby every two to three hours, change diaper at feeding, give bath every two days, check back of neck to see if they feel cold or hot. Is it just me or did everyone else need to be shown how to bathe an infant? The nurse taught my husband at the hospital and in turn he showed me at home. And then he never showed up for bath time again. He’s going to be so mad I wrote that. Fine, he almost never showed up again. He critiques my posts before I publish them. Ha! Wait until the one where I roast him about movie date night. I’m just going to put that one up sans critique and he can read it at the same time as my fourteen followers. Well, it’s thirteen because I’m actually one of my followers. Let’s move on. When I was preparing for my first baby, my mom asked me if I had enough onesies. Yup, I had tons, and I showed her. That was when I learned that onesies and pajamas aren’t the same thing, and that I had zero onesies. Amateur! Anyway that stuff is irrelevant because no matter how much I prepared, I ended up getting schooled by the most demanding, tiring, moody, and unpredictable person of all. No, not my mom –she’s not like that, you guys! My newborn baby schooled me. After having some experience with my own baby, and then a couple of more, I can take everything I’ve learned and write my own book. That book would only apply to my household. I wouldn’t hand it to my friends and be like Listen, just bathe your babies only once a week or It’s okay to let them cry for long periods of time, it won’t screw them up later or Don’t worry about them sleeping in poopy diapers, rashes come and go or Hold them down and flush their snotty noses with saline water no matter how harsh you think it is or how much they suffer through it – show those boogers who’s boss. My book wouldn’t be full of wise and good advice necessarily, it would basically describe days loaded with mash-ups of loud noises and foul odours, yet run like well-oiled machines. Never mind how I got from morning to night and never mind feeling guilty about baby-related details like cradle cap or eczema or baby acne. I have two goals for them: to grow and be loved. In my book, if your babies’ growth is your main concern then there are no bad moms here. Obviously, you’re going to love and cuddle them along the way because, um, they are the cutest. And if you’re grumpy and tired much of the time then you’re probably doing everything amazingly. It’s really time to start tooting. Your horns, that is, not the other kind. But let that out too. It’s important. Babies really teach you that.
Eat, Sleep, & Watch TV
I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me blog.
I feel the need to do something for myself at a time in my life when nothing is about me. I remember when everything was about me. I should have taken advantage of all my free time. Sure, I used my time to sleep a lot and I cherish all those fond memories of me sleeping but I should have done more. Even though my brain has turned to fuzz and my personality is under renovations, especially my patience, I think my sudden need to write is for two reasons. The first being that the years are passing by quickly and I want to stop and take note of it, using words to witness my life, to preserve little memories and big ones. The second reason is that the days are going by so slowly and I want to use writing as an outlet, an aid to keeping myself sane and happy. One great thing about blogging is that it doesn’t get your hands dirty, so I can drop what I’m doing in a second if I have to make sure the television is ok after it tips over on my toddler. After which I return to my laptop only to find the password has been changed and I’m locked out. I didn’t even have a password on my laptop. So I’m breaking into my own laptop with the help of my bestie, Google. I’m wondering how my two year old added the password feature on my laptop, creating one that was apparently something like “khda daouu mama daddy gatig bye bye” which is what he said when I asked him. So he did that in one minute and I had to study for ten minutes how to undo it. At this point, I’m doing well with my patience. I’m feeling pretty good actually. I kept it together, even as I used a Lysol wipe to disinfect the crusty mess on my screen and keyboard. All clean and ready to go again. I’m getting good at this! And then…I see my infant has regurgitated milk while doing tummy time and he’s rubbing his hands and his pajama sleeves all over it and my toddler is doing something gross with it too. I can’t explain why my serene demeanor catapulted into nonexistence, but I am suddenly completely enraged, screaming at them, and questioning myself. Who was I just two minutes ago? Who am I in this moment? When will I sleep again? When will I be free again? Can the neighbours hear me? It doesn’t sound like much but that can tire a person out. My days are riddled with kids. Here I am in my thirties, soiling the prime of my life with babies. Maybe I’m being dramatic but it is dramatic. It can be traumatic! It all starts with the births. I love hearing birth stories and telling mine, they are something to be proud of; c-section or vaginal, epidural or no epidural, girls or boys, singles or multiples, stitches, swelling, bleeding, sciatic pain, yelling, screaming, crying, sweating, pooping, vomiting, breastfeeding, pumping, formula, postpartum care and depression, minimal sleep and hygiene. There are so many changes and so many questions. There is so much to be said and a lot that needs to stop being said. There is so much to learn and confidence to build. There is both so much light and darkness. Having a baby put a crazy and complicated twist on my life but after a while, things were under control. Then, we had twins. After that, all my husband and I wished for in life was to eat, sleep, and watch TV in peace. Almost nine months later, we get to do all of that, which we used to take for granted.
We went through some hell, and now we are back.
the art of evergreen 