I have four kids, and I wouldn't trade being a parent for the world... etc., we all have heard before how wonderful it is to have kids.
I do mean it, and I love my kids to death. But also, anyone who says parenting is easy is a liar.
Our life is pretty crazy at times. My husband is in med school, we have a kid we suspect might on the spectrum, we home school, and I'm trying to establish a career as a screenwriter.
Sometimes, it's a lot. And other times, I'm dying with laughter. So I wanted to share a few short snippets of funnies that have happened in our family life lately, instances that illustrate the kind of parent I am and what our life looks like.
Tic Tac Toe Hustle
My five-year-old randomly asked the other day if I'd play tic tac toe with him. I had a spare moment, so I said sure. But contrary to how many parents would prepare to purposely let their losing-averse five-year-old win a game of tic tac toe, I warned him, "I'm pretty good, though. I'll probably beat you."
He considered this a moment and said okay. And I began plotting how I could actually instead let him win the first couple rounds, lull him into a false sense of security, convince him to place a bet on the next game, and then crush him.
Needless to say, I did not follow through on this plan.
But after about eight rounds, he did legitimately beat me.
Just Say No
Toddlers can be so difficult to deal with that it's almost a joke. Like a really terrible joke that actaully makes you cry (so yeah, not a joke at all).
My 3-year-old has been having these tantrums lately (out of the blue, for no apparent reason that we can fathom), where she'll just sit there and scream no at the top of her lungs. Threats of punishments, threats of bigger punishments, and attempts at distraction do almost nothing to stop it.
But one time as this was occuring, I was struck with a brilliant idea. I said to her, "Can you say no?" Suddenly, her choices were either to obey me and say no again (she wants to say no but certainly doesn't want to be doing what I ask), or to not say no anymore which is what I was trying to make happen all along.
She was immediately silent. I smugly turned to my husband and shook my clasped hands over both shoulders like Bugs Bunny does in victory.
Flippers in Church
I don't talk about this with a lot of people because they would start legitmately questioning my sanity, but I go to daily Mass with my four kids every day. I have a lot of reasons for doing this, which would probably bore most people, so I won't go into that here.
Sometimes, it is not pretty, as you might expect: though my eight year-old always behaves great these days, my five-year-old can be antsy and whiney at times, the three-year-old can have a melt down on occasion, and the one-year-old can decide he should be getting down to run away from me while also yelling out, "Hi-ya!" at the top of his lungs.
But other times, it ranges from fine to lovely.
Here's a snap shot of a day that was more in that not-so-pretty category:
Walking in, one of the sandals I was wearing broke as we got out of the car. I'd had these sandals for about nine years, so no wonder.
The thing that goes between my toes broke out of the sole, leaving them attached only at my ankle. The effect was somewhat flipper-like as I continued walking into the church wearing them. I contemplated taking them off, but it felt awfully weird to be walking around barefoot and I figured I could sort of drag my feet to make it look less weird maybe.
Sitting, standing, and kneeling throughout the short daily Mass, I totally forgot I had a broken shoe because I wasn't walking around. But then it came time to go up for Communion, which meant that my five and three-year-old had to start shoving and fighting each other to try to go up first in front of each other (thank goodness that was a short phase that has since ended!).
So I'm hurrying out of the pew after them to try to separate them and mediate, as they practically run down the middle aisle toward the priest for their blessings. And there's me hurrying after them, FLIP-FLOPping as if I'm wearing a flipper on one foot.
I was thankful there were very few people there to watch this distruptive scene. To his credit, the priest kept a straight face and didn't let a smirk add to my embarassment.
Channeling My Inner Pizza
When my older sister first began having kids in her very early twenties, our dad declared that he was NOT old enough to be called Grandpa. He experimented with a few alternative names for the grandkids to call him, but the oldest ones ended up randomly dubbing him "Pizza" in the way that little kids do. He decided he liked it, and that's been his grandparent name ever since.
In my own childhood, I have memories of randomly driving in the car when one of my dad's jams from the 80s would come on the radio—or even weirder, a modern pop song that he happened to really like. He would crank it up soooo loud and start awkwardly seat dancing in the middle of traffic, while my siblings and I would all yell, "Nooooooo!" as if the world were ending.
A few weeks ago when I was in the car with all of my kids, I heard the familiar beat of an old FloRida song come on. I'm usually not really that into pop, hiphop, rock, or anything other than country. But there are a few songs from genres like those that I'll hear sometimes that immediately take me back the 10-ish years to when they were popular.
This song, "Club Can't Handle Me" brought me right back to my college days. I like how I say that as if I have memories of tearing up the dance floor or something, when really I remember listening to it on Pandora on my computer alone in my dorm room while I studied (#nerd, amIright?).
Nonetheless, I hadn't heard this song in years, and I wanted to jam.
I cranked it up, and I started seat-dancing as awardly as my freaking dad did in my own childhood while my kids yelled, "No! Mommy, can you turn that down?" And, "I don't like this song!"
Oh how the tables have turned. I realized, "Oh my goodness, I'm turning into Pizza!"
More To Come
That's all for now. I'm sure I'll have more parenting fails and wins to add in the future, if I happen to have the time to take out to type them for the few people who stumble over hear to read.
And here's a little pre-packaged Wix picture of some blocks, because that, uh, encapsulates parenting and having kids? Sure. Let's go with that.
