I love my kids, I just hate parenting
If I could, I’d eat nothing but snacks.
Sure, I’d miss cheeseburgers and steak and Al Di La and sushi and all that, but give me a bag of chips – or even some raw broccoli – and a jar of french onion dip and I’m set for life.
This predilection for constant nibbling in between meals makes my role as a parent difficult. Because I am forced to stop my kids from doing the same. (Especially when it’s my snacks they’re stealing!)
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 parent enjoys it when the kids are sick. Especially when the kid is a baby or a toddler.
After a while, though – provided it’s just a cold and not cancer (god forbid) – their ill-health shifts from being nerve-wracking and a source of anxiety to being annoying and a source of irritation. My baby has had a fever for the last few nights and I’m sick and tired of it!
Emphasis on tired.
I always wanted two kids.
And I always wanted them to be close in age — no more than two or three years — so they could grow up together and be friends. After I had my first son, my mind didn’t change, but my circumstances did. Having another kid became impossible for a few years, and the possibility of a two- or three-year age gap evaporated.
We ended up with a five-year gap. And so far, so good.
If you’ve read this blog before, you’re probably no stranger to my anxiety as a parent. If you are a parent, you’re probably no stranger to it either. Parenting makes paranoids out of all of us.
In the past I’ve written about the general stresses of the gig, and I’ve occasionally focused on my fear over my own shortcomings, and how they might affect my kids. lately, I’ve been less concerned about how my parenting might eventually ruin my children, and more worried that it already has.
Have I already ruined my kids?