Eight years and 10 or 11 months. That’s how long the calendar says I have been a parent. I think I took to it pretty well. I mean, I only forgot to change her diaper once, for like hours, and puzzled over why she was crying so intensely. And I’m sure it was terribly wise to tuck my 6 week old into the moby wrap, zip my coat around her and shovel snow. Right?
I sufficiently stressed over nursing my three girls. I freaked out over their weight gain. Worried about when they were psychologically ready for solid food.
My timing for potty training the firstborn was many months too early and the whole process was very drawn out and stressful. I kept the potty chair accessible for her to get to…and the dog only ate her poopies once; she was only hysterical about it for a couple hours. That’s a win, right?
And when school came, I made sure the two oldest ones were in matching outfits, at the last second, for the separate pictures they would be taking. Said pictures were never even near each other, because I forgot to hang them up. I bought the frames, so I was close…?????
Then, stop the presses, I lobbied my hubby to homeschool. Because I needed the opportunity to puzzle over just the right curriculum and their learning styles and making sure they had other kids to interact with, to the extent we ended up with too many outside activities and had to cut some out.
All of this fun, these adventures have left me waiting…waiting for parenthood, and particularly motherhood, to get easy. I think by now I have leaped over several hurdles and passed many tests, so today is when it will get ready, right? Today is the day it will all be perfect. Or, it will be the day Sue chases after a peacock at the zoo and I don’t notice until another mom stopped her. And the icing on this first day of easy parenting will be my hubby asking me if I always yell at them that much…
Maybe it is tomorrow I will get to stop waiting for it to get easy.
Sigh.
