I am my worst self in the morning. Actually, I'm my worst self in the late evenings as well. I also get a touch cranky in the afternoon, when I could really use a nap. Basically, there's a window of about 20 minutes a day where I am bearable.

 

As a parent of three young Spawns, who do you think suffers the most here? You bet your ass it's me. Twenty minutes isn't a lot of time to fit in all of the domestic chores that need to be done and to share all of the maternal love and cheeriness I need to give in order to avoid raising children who microwave small animals. I'm sad to say that I am passing on the jerk gene to my kin.

The other morning while I was deep sighing in the kitchen, my youngest yelled out, "Arg, fuck!". I snapped out of my navel gazing to calmly explain that we don't use that word (We. as in him and I. It's mine. All mine. Get your grubby hands off of it.). Now, at this point in the day I'm coffeed out and in a deep state of caffeinated paranoia so I may be way off but I had the distinct impression that my youngest was forcing himself to come down to my level to calmly explain to me, "but I dropped my spoon on the floor, so...". 

It's these small moments, these nuggets, when all of the hard work feels like it's paying off, you know? It takes humans years to develop such a strong and appropriate use of cussing. And this lil' genius whipped it out at the age of three. I was beaming with pride. 

Which meant I had about 17 minutes left of pleasantness left in my day. 

and it burned, burned, burned. the ring of fire. the ring of fire.

In the beginning of my relationship, I used to hide the fact that I pooped from my Associate, convinced even myself that I didn't care about marriage and pretended that I liked walking the long way home. Something changed somewhere between opening a joint bank account and my first episiotomy. Now, I can let it all hang out and what hangs out all over the place is how I want a ring on my finger. The evolution of the ring in our relationship went along these lines:

me: I think marriage is waste of money.

him: I couldn't agree more. We're so perfect for each other. Let's never get married!

.....

me: I just want a ring- as a symbol of our commitment. Just a plain, silver band. Nothing fancy.

him: Umm. O.K. 

.....

me: silver isn't durable. I meant silver looking. I want white gold.

him: (now defeated by years of our love) yeah, ok. Just pick out whatever you like and buy it.

.....

me: I just can't decide! Which one should I get?? I'll show my friends pictures of rings I like and bookmark sites that I love! Wait a minute. What's that??

him: Oh, I found this gold band at Value Village. It fits me perfectly! Anyway, I'm going to work now. Bye! 

me. ringless. marriageless.

Are you kidding me?? He goes from not wanting to get married to voluntarily wearing a ring from an imaginary wedding?! And he wears it everyday! Everywhere! Ooooo. Well played! He may have one the battle but I will win the war! I will marry him and he will put not one, but two rings on my finger! Ha! Hahahahahahaha! Take THAT 'Associate'!

A mother's lullaby

I could go to sleep but then some kid will wake up. So I stay awake, breathlessly waiting for one to wake up. Then I give up and go to bed but I can't sleep because I know. I know they're just waiting for me to let my guard down. Somehow, at some point, I fall asleep. For ten beautiful minutes I sleep. Deeply and soundly. And then someone starts to cry. And that someone is me, as I tear myself out of bed to sooth some child back to sleep. I yearn for the sleep of a thousand nights. You know, death. I'm talking about death.
G'night!

My eldest Spawn is supposed to be napping but is instead singing 'I've been working on the railroad' on a serious repeat. I find this hard to swallow. We both know that she's never done a day of hard work in her life. 

My one year old is having an epic nap. Very unlike her. It's glorious to have this break while both Spawns sleep. It's spoiled only by the fear that she may never wake up. But do I check on her, check on her breathing? No, I do not. What's done is done, you know?

sick days

My dependents are sick. I've never been especially sympathetic for people who aren't feeling well. I just don't really care and automatically feel inconvenienced. Sooo self centred. Since having young children, I've realized that my feelings haven't changed at all.

fancy pants parenting idea

If you think it sounds like a nice idea to get your toddler out of bed to see a beautiful, complete rainbow: THINK AGAIN. This is probably the universes' way of telling you that it's also not a nice idea to take your kids out of school on a cross country trip to show them the world. Because before you hit the interstate, you realize that you're stuck in a metal cage with nowhere to go and nowhere to sneak off to smoke. I read you, Universe. Loud and clear. I won't be doing anything stupid by trying anymore fancy parenting ideas.


**update: This year's Canada Day fireworks were cancelled minutes after they were supposed to start. There were tears and broken hearts littering the streets along with the usual mini flags. I will never trust again. I will never trust that letting my children stay up hours past their bedtime will be 'worth it'.