I love my kids, I just hate parenting
Before we have kids, we often make a lot of hyperbolic statements about the things we can’t live without. Things like bacon and beer, as well as certain albums and books and movies.
Then you have kids, and those kids immediately skyrocket to the top of the list. Some of the other items on the list are displaced, having instantly become frivolous, but some of them remain, and even grow in importance.
Like coffee!
Everyone needs sleep. Parents more than most.
(Well, air traffic controllers more than most, probably, and, soldiers and doctors and stuff too. But parents are definitely on the list. Especially parents who happen to be military doctors turned air traffic controllers!)
We’re tired. And that’s just the way it is and always will be.
We never get enough sleep, but what if there’s a way to improve the sleep we do get?
No kid likes going to bed.
My 6-year-old could be in the middle of getting waterboarded and he’d rather stick that out than have to brush his teeth and go to his room. As such, he’s become a master at putting it off, and at turning every bedtime into a battle.
Every night, when bedtime approaches, he suddenly becomes possessed with the need to do things. Anything. EVERYTHING.
Unfortunately, this includes making Daddy angry.
You think the worst is over.
You got the kid home from the hospital, you (or your wife) managed to survive labor, you endured the first couple of months of constant wake-ups and middle of the night feedings, and you’ve finally reached the point where the kid is sleeping through the night.
You did it! Success! This baby stuff is a breeze! You start getting a little more sleep, and you finally start feeling like yourself again; you actually, somehow, inexplicably, start thinking about having another baby. After all, you can take two to three months of no sleep. It ain’t no thing!
Right?
If you’ve been following me on social media, you probably know that I’ve been on my own the past few days.
We were at my parents for the holiday weekend, and while I came back to NYC on Tuesday to go to work, Mom and Buried and the kids stuck around. The kids got to hang with Grandma (consequences be damned) and Mom and Buried was able to get some work done without paying for a babysitter. Or camp.
Meanwhile, I was living the high life, bachelor style! FREEDOM!