This morning, I was awoken a few minutes before my alarm went off, because #1 had already begun to stir and babble and indicate that she was awake. My alarm went off three minutes later at 7 am because I get up at 7 am every single day of my life regardless of if it’s a weekend or holiday so that I can hope to get some stuff done and have breakfast ready for the kids for when I inevitably get them from their respective rooms.
I got off of the couch because my in-laws were visiting and mythical wife and I forfeited our bed because we no longer have a guest room because we have an au pair, and I trudged into the kitchen to begin the morning routine. It didn’t last long, because #1 began screaming and crying out for dada to come get her, and it was getting louder and louder, and typically I try to no-sell it and hope she calms back down, but it was evident that that wasn’t going to happen this morning. And before her screaming would wake up the rest of the state of Georgia, I went up to get her early, regardless of the fact that I hadn’t gotten anything prepared for the morning.
Turns out she had completely soaked the bed, and most likely from a combination of shame and embarrassment, she was furious, despite the fact that I did not get mad or upset with her and explained calmly that everything was okay and that we would fix it. She wailed like a banshee and had a nuclear meltdown, while I stripped the sheets and got her changed and brought her downstairs. I love my kids, but trying to do anything with them around is at least three times harder than it should be, and putting away yesterday’s dishes and trying to prepare breakfast for them is no exception.
After getting #1 situated and eating, I went up to get #2, and thankfully this morning she was the chill kid, and didn’t fuss and fight at all which was a huge relief. She sat down and began eating and for two seconds, things were quiet with them eating breakfast. But that didn’t last long, because the rest of the house started waking up, and other human beings are automatically distracting to them, and before I know, breakfast is abandoned, and they’re running amok, primarily fucking with the Christmas tree and some of the decorations we had just set up the night prior after Thanksgiving dinner part two.
To cut to the chase and cut down on redundant words and stories about how hard my life is in my parental circumstances, that was basically the story of the day, playing a fuck ton of defense throughout the house as #2 was being a little shit all day long just trying to get into things, fuck with the Christmas tree and being a defiant dick, throwing and knocking over anything she could get her hands on, and #1 being an uber-clingy barnacle to me the entire day, demanding my attention or having a meltdown if she wasn’t getting it.
Mythical wife and I declared that today was arguably, the hardest day we had as parents as we’d ever had, as in ever, and we both agreed that as much as we love the kids, this was one of those days where we just could not wait to put them down to bed for the evening. I often think it’s cliché for people to crack open a cold alcoholic beverage after a trying day, but today definitely encapsulated the circumstances for it to sound like the greatest idea in the world, and not five minutes after I came downstairs after putting #1 to bed, it was straight to the fridge to pull out a Schofferhofer, one of the weak-ass fruit witbiers that I still actually enjoy drinking at home, when I feel like having something with a little booze in it.
As nihilistic and pessimistic as it might sound, this was just another year of holidays that I just can’t really get into and didn’t really look forward to, because this stage of parenting is just so overwhelmingly difficult on a daily basis, that I don’t really much like getting out of the routine, even for holidays in which we’re expected to be happy and thankful for things, because it just means a whole lot of extra work of preparing my home, hosting people, and a whole lot of gray area of childcare and eyes on the girls, resulting in mostly me feeling like I’m the only one who is mindful of the kids and being the primary person chasing after them and keeping watch over them, all while I have other responsibilities and expectations to do as well, because trying to do anything with kids around is automatically eight times harder than it should be, but I still have to do them anyway, hell or high water.
And I can’t help but think about holidays in the past prior to having kids, because they were all just so simple and full of space to have the capacity to think about things like traveling instead of hosting, contemplating Black Friday shopping, and actually having the money to do both, and I love my kids and family until the day I die, but there’s no denying just how different, simple and mindless life was prior to the rigors of raising kids.
Lots of parents of children far older than my own often like to say how things get easier as they age, which makes sense, but god damn there are times in which I can’t wait for those days to become reality in my life, because days like this I find myself cursing in private at how much I’m so sick of parenting sometimes, and wanting to scream and break shit over the aggravation of my kids can be when they both feel like being little asshole shits, and I feel bad for doing such, but I’m already always living in a state of high RPM stress on the regular, and I just wonder when things will actually calm down to where I don’t have to feel like this and dread holidays and can eventually get back to enjoying them again someday.
