My Not So Favorite Parts About Being a Mommy

Yes, we are right smack dab in the middle of Thanksgiving week.  The time of the year where we count our blessings, remember all that we have to be thankful for, and our hearts are full to the beating brim with that warm, fuzzy, grateful feeling.  In fact, I have dutifully recorded on facebook each day this month something(s) that I am thankful for, just as I have for the past 3 years.  (Okay, I missed a few days, sue me.)

Well, this is simply not one of those kinds of posts.  As much as I really do have a grateful heart this month (as I try to all year long), some of the events from the past couple of weeks have left me feeling...well...a tad bit irritated and highly frustrated.  And most of these events have stemmed right from the two most precious things to me: Chandler and Liam.  These two very precious blessings that I am so, so, so very thankful have prompted this post.  Yes, friends, my kids are driving me CRAZY!  Crazy enough that I sweetly threatened to twist their heads off the other day in public.  (Yea, that happened.  But in my defense, I would never actually go through with it.  I was totally bluffing.)

So, even though it is November and I should be making a list about the soft, warm, fuzzy, things that I am thankful for on this journey through motherhood....here is the list that I really need to get off of my chest so that I can move on and get over it:

My Not So Favorite Parts About Being a Mommy

1. Shopping with kids.  Especially at Wal-Mart.  On a Saturday.  Or anyday for that matter.  It is what I imagine hell to be like, but worse.  And it always seems like a good idea at first!  Then the instant that you put those kids in a cart, they somehow grow four limbs a piece and morph into octo-kids.  Then they use four limbs to attempt climbing out of the cart, while the other four limbs are throwing crap into the cart.

 

2. Vomit.  It is my least favorite thing to do, and I hate it even more when I have to clean it from from a little person in the middle of the night all over sheets, jammies, pillows, and carpet.  Gag.

3. Potty training.  Kids should just come out naturally knowing how to go potty.  And whoever said that potty training boys was easy, well they lied.  It's not easy.  It'll make a person crazy.

4. The no's.  Srsly.  Do not tell me no.  I am bigger than you and smarter than you.  And also, OH YEAH, I'M YOUR MOTHER!!!

5. (A) Waiting rooms with kids.  Nothing says fun like taking your (more often than not sick) kids to a room where all you will do is wait.  With other sick kids.  For long periods of time.  O....M....G...

    (B) Shots.  Makes the waiting part even worse if that's what you're there for.  And trying to drag a 6 year old kid into the doctor when they know what's coming...well, it's just no fun.  Ain't no amount of McDonald's ice cream cones afterward that's gonna make that go any easier.  And then having to watch, or worse than that, having to help hold them down...well that's just mean.

6. How you lose all sense of public decency when it comes to talking about the birth of your children.  I found myself telling someone the other night in The Art Mill how when my water broke with Liam, I thought I was just peeing myself.  Yup. 

7. Parroting.  I mean, come on now.  If I wanted someone to repeat everything I said, I would get a parrot.  Or a Furby.  I want neither.  Think of your own words to say.

8. Sharing my bed.  I do good to share my bed with your Daddy.  And, hey!  Remember that big, cozy rectangular shaped item that we put in your room that you use as a trampoline??  That, son, would be your bed.  You should use it so that mommy doesn't get socked in the face 13 times every night.

9. Sharing my food.  I don't want to.  I will, but I don't want to.  Except for fudge pie.  I will not share my fudge pie.  My kids know that.  Ain't happening.

10. Please.  For the love all things good in this world.  Just let me poop alone.

So there. I said it.  I feel better now.  And, oddly enough, I am grateful for these things.  Not because I enjoy them.  But because these parts of motherhood that, while they surely aren't the shining moments, are some of the defining ones.  I learn from them.  And hopefully I learn enough so that my reactions and responses aren't always like the ones that I've had this week.  And, you know what, I am sure that I will look back on these days and these moments one day with fondness and longing....one day.  Plus, these two sweet faces make all of that mess more than worth it.

"We can always find something to be thankful for, and there may be reasons why we ought to be thankful for even those dispensations which appear dark and frowning."

~Albert Barnes~

Till next time friends!

Brittany :)

P.S.- Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving!  Because I'm sure this post got you feeling all Thanksgivingie.  :)