Relentless
by Amber Dubois
I feel that I need to preface this entry by reminding everyone that I adore my children. I adore them senselessly and completely and unendingly, but this has been one heck of a week, folks. It started with disastrous car problems and ended with TWO fundraisers kicking off on the same day and TWO birthday parties on the same day. In between we had more snot (Beeka is still sick. Argh.), being woken by a small baby with pointy fingernails pulling up my eyelid and poking me square in the eyeball, fighting with Mr. Dubois and more attitude off the big girl than any normal person could reasonably be expected to tolerate without seriously considering if Thelma and Louise might not have had the right idea.
This is the crap they don't tell you about in your childbirth classes. They don't tell you about how for the first four months or so after you give birth, all of that beautiful, thick hair you grew during gestation will fall out. Invest in Drano. (Buy it at Costco, it's cheaper in mass quantity there.)
Although, if you had a girl, that acne will go away, too...there's that.
They don't tell you that school fundraisers don't kick off at a time that will make sense or that will be convenient. They will happen when you have no money to throw at them. They will happen in pairs, or threes or fours. They will be for things that no reasonable person wants to buy, at prices that nobody wants to pay. My butt does not two pounds of frozen Otis Spunkmeyer cookie dough for $15 a box, people!
And although this has nothing to do with parenting, why, in the name of all that's holy, do cars break down the literal instant you get done paying them off?
I've spent at least three days this week contemplating sitting in a dark corner with a bag of fun-sized Snickers bars, eating myself into a diabetic coma. The other two days were spent contemplating sitting in a dark corner with a bottle of Johnny Black, drinking myself into liver failure.
Don't worry...I would have waited until my husband had gotten home in either case.
The thing that they really need to tell you in childbirth classes is this: parenting is relentless. It's unending. There are no breaks, there are no time outs. It's not an 18 year commitment, it's a rest-of-your-life sort of deal. The most painful part of the whole deal is NOT giving birth. It's not labor or the episiotomy, it's the "...and now what?" that you start to feel after the glow of having that baby finally here fades. The minute you start to realize that they expect you to take this small, needy bundle HOME. With you. To your house that you've just realized has a stove and an entertainment center and stairs and is, subsequently a death trap for babies. And to the husband who is suddenly struck deaf when the baby cries or can't be found when it's time to change a diaper. And to the you who doesn't know what the heck she's doing, but everyone looks to when the baby cries or needs a new diaper.
That, my friends, is when it gets real.
I'm not writing this to scare anyone. Parenting isn't all bad, or all hard. There's some flat out rapture in there, too, and some moments that you never want to end. There are times when your face will hurt from all the smiling. But those aren't every day. Sometimes they're few and far between.
You don't need me to tell you about the happy times. You need me to tell you about the times when you take the kids and run to the car because you know if you're there another minute, someone's going to call child protective services, knowing that the only reason a child would scream so loudly is if they're being abused. You need me to tell you about the things you do as a parent that you're not proud of, but that you've done because you're at the end of your rope and there's nobody offering a helping hand. You need me to tell you that it's OK to put the baby in her crib and go outside and take a deep, clean breath--or seven.
The thing you really need me to tell you, though? The thing that's going to make it easier to sleep tonight when you feel like the worst Mom ever? It's this:
If, at the end of the day, everyone is alive, fed and clothed; if the barf and snot and poo have been contained or at least cleaned up after the fact; if you have lived through whatever the day had to throw at you, then you've done a good job. Solid work! Rest up, and rest up good, 'cause the other thing I have to tell you that might not make it easier to sleep tonight is this:
It starts all over again tomorrow.
Nighty 'Night!
