The NeverEnding Story

No pretty pictures today, just whining.

I am so very tired. I slept fitfully, hot flashing, heart racing and dreaming a sick apocalyptic dream involving grabbing what I could from the house before it got looted and burned to the ground by bad guys with flamethrowers. To add to the excitement, the house is in flames while I try to get my kids to understand they need to grab clothes, food and blankets and run. Interestingly, the non-essential I grab is my collection of tiny things and I worry about them breaking. I'm surprised I didn't grab books and photos.

Not exactly restful. I awake to the cat walking on my hair to get to my bedside table and drink from my water glass. Pissed off before I get out of bed. And then...

Fifteen year old almost misses the 6:25 am bus because he can't find his backpack. Mom, Dad and clueless child scour the house, trying to locate the backpack, while child acts indignant like someone hid it from him, claiming he left it on the kitchen counter. It is under his sister's backpack on the floor of the den where he threw it when he got home. Did he look there? Yes. Did he look under anything? No. Dad saves the day, in the nick of time. And then...

Thirteen year old almost misses the 7:30 bus because she can't find the shoes and jacket she wore yesterday. Did I wear them? Did I hide them? Do I have a clue where she left them this time??? NO. Does she get indignant and snitty with me because she is running late and needs to blame someone? YES. Do I get mad back at her? You betcha. Is this the way I imagined parenthood? NOPE.

It's mornings like this where my 50 year old tired achy arthritic sore ass* questions the logic of desperately craving babies in my late 30's. I really am too old and tired for this shit. And I clearly have some adjustments to make with the ADD crowd and my morning attitude. My children are brilliant and clueless, just like their mom.

Things nobody told me about parenting and it's probably a good thing they didn't:

I would almost lose my mind from sleep deprivation and post partum hormone imbalances, and then again in a decade or so from menopause hormone imbalances and sleep deprivation.

I would love and protect them with a fierceness I didn't know I had in me, and live with fear of knowns and unknowns and what ifs with dread I can't hide from.

They grow and change so fast that it feels like being stuck on a merry go round.

Their teenage years and my menopause years are colliding in a perfect storm of crazy, chaotic hormonal madness.

When I talk to them, they hear Charlie Brown's mom. Waah Wha Wha Whaa Waaaah.

I would spend most of my time with them driving them to and from school and sporting events. In fact, most of our quality time happens in a car.

I'm not half the mom I thought I'd be, and they are infinitely more complicated than I could have imagined.

I give up on the battles I thought mattered to fight ones I didn't know existed.

This is the hardest job I have ever done - no breaks, no vacations, no pay, few perks, fuzzy performance appraisals - my contract is almost up and I'm unprepared for the deadline. I wonder how I can ever get them ready to live in the world when I barely know how myself.

My mom wasn't crazy all by herself, we helped make her that way.

All those parenting books I bought - about 50 by now - were mostly bullshit. The only one that helped was Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, and maybe the What to Expect series. All the rest of them, especially the parenting without yelling genres, practically worthless, at least in this family, where no one is neurotypical or easy going. We're a bunch of introverted, intense, twitchy, inflexible, tag hating, food picky, ADD, OCD, technology addicted, organizationally impaired slobs. Welcome to the funhouse.

Of course, I wouldn't know what to change if I could change anything, or where to start. And I'll never regret for a second having these mind boggling children. I just needed a good whine. Done now. Thanks.



* sore ass compliments of tripping and falling into the fire pit and onto the fire grate while taking a picture. This brings the fall tally in the last three years to seven, if I'm remembering them all. I need to be really, really careful about the gravity problem before I break my neck.