I love my kids, I just hate parenting
Sometimes, in the midst of parenting, it’s easy to lose track of your kids. (Figuratively speaking, of course!)
My 7-year-old and I butt heads on the regular, never more so than when we’re navigating the everyday stresses of our daily routines.
Schedules and stress and exhaustion and frustration combine to make our relationship combustible.
Last spring, Mom and Buried found an unopened package of rubber door stoppers on the street.
In my neighborhood, people put stuff they don’t want on their front curb, and it’s understood that it’s all up for grabs until the garbage man comes. Sometimes it’s old books and DVDs, sometimes it’s random bits of clothing, sometimes it’s a gently-used AC unit or a TV or a bookshelf.
Door stoppers are not something I would have even looked twice at, and needing them had never really occurred to Mom and Buried either. But she grabbed the package anyway.
Because the door stoppers aren’t for us. They’re for our brand-new third grader.
This weekend marks the unofficial end of summer, and, the return of back to school season. You’re probably knee-deep in it already, as New York is kind of late. Detective Munch doesn’t start until next week.
It’s finally time to say goodbye to leisurely mornings in which I don’t have to scream at my son to put his shoes on and then sprint to the bus stop. Of course, as my son enters the second (!!) grade, I have much bigger concerns than getting out of the house on time.
What are they? I’m glad you asked!
My son’s impending entry into Kindergarten is causing a whole host of problems in my life. (Not the least of which will be his eventual ability to read the channel guide as I try to quickly scroll past the names of his garbage programs.)
It’s still six months away and yet it’s already negatively impacting my life. There are all sorts of schedules, and schedules mean planning, and I don’t like planning. I’m supposed to know what I’m doing six months in advance? I don’t even know what I did two days ago, and that was two days! Ago! (I went on a bar crawl, so what did you expect? I’m surprised I’m awake right now.)
But I’m a parent. Of a soon-to-be kindergartener. Planning has become an unavoidable part of my life. I mean, it’s even part of “planning” an escape.
It’s like I’m being mocked.
When I was a kid, The Karate Kid was one of my favorite movies. If I’m totally honest, it still is. I see it listed in the channel guide and there’s no way I’m not watching the tournament.
Growing up, I was so enamored with the uplifting tale of Daniel LaRusso’s war against the neo-Nazi community of Southern California that my parents thought I might want to take karate classes. And I would have, if I hadn’t been so terrified of landing in a Cobra Kai-type school with a Vietnam-traumatized sensei who would force me to be racist and do push-ups on my knuckles.
Come on, I was like eight years old. Which I thought was a little young for martial arts. Except almost 30 years later, my son is taking them, and he’s three.