I love my kids, I just hate parenting
Last week, I wrote about the sleep deprivation, the loss of both quantity and quality of sleep, that comes with being a parent.
Even after sleep training, even when they’re older, your sleep schedule gets shredded.
Today, I thought I’d share a timeline of the typical night in the Buried household, from when we put Detective Munch down to bed and from when he gets us up the next morning.
Buckle up, it’s going to be a bumpy night.
Parenting is such an incredible, all-consuming experience that it causes you to feel emotions differently than you’ve ever felt them before. Caring for your children causes many emotions to come on more strongly, and more quickly, than they used to.
Not only do you often find yourself feeling myriad emotions in quick succession, if not all at once – many of them new emotions you may not have experienced before – but you also find yourself experiencing the same ones, good and bad, every day, over and over again.
Especially if you have more than one child.
You may have noticed that “being tired” is a recurring theme on my blog, because my blog is about parenting, and being tired is one of parenting‘s recurring themes. Yay kids!
I knew – we all knew – that being tired was part of the deal before I had my first kid, and it’s not the tiredness that bugs me. No, my problem isn’t that I’m exhausted, or my constant sleep deprivation; I knew my quantity of sleep would suffer. It’s the quality of sleep I miss the most!
Two kids deep, the little sleep I do get has become a battleground. Every night, there’s a five-year-old in my bed, keeping me awake for no discernible reason, and a baby in my bed, keeping me awake just because he doesn’t want to starve to death!
Together, the little leeches have stolen my sanctuary from me.
My son’s first crush has reared its head.
There’s a girl in his kindergarten class that he’s constantly pretending to marry. I don’t know if his proposal involves an engagement ring, he has no money, and he may not even know about that part of the ritual yet. But I’m pretty sure he’ll learn about it soon.
Because despite an ancient screenplay I wrote that flipped the script by having girls propose to guys with an “engagement watch,” odds are the diamond ring will maintain its hegemony for at least another generation or so. So he’d better start saving now!
Despite the fact that I’m more likely to classify myself as a realist, most people would probably say otherwise.
They consider me a pessimist, especially people who don’t know me well, or don’t share my sense of humor, and a cynic. Which is fine. I turn 40 this year, I’ve long stopped worrying about other people’s misconceptions.
But I do worry about how my children see me. And about the potential negative impact my personality might have on them.