Today has been a day for the books. Today has been the kind of day where I raise my face to the heavens and cry, “Why!?!?!?” Today has been the kind of day where I realize that the fact hair remains follicly attached to my head must be due to divine intervention. Today has been the kind of day where I honestly question my effectiveness as a parent.
It hasn’t always been like this.
When we brought Avery home from the hospital, after 23 hours of grueling labor (pre-epidural, that is), I mentally prepared myself for the most difficult job in the universe. And within seven days I was laughing in the face of that job that has brought much stronger women to their knees. This parenting stuff was easy. The tiny little bundle of baby slept. And ate. And pooped. And smiled. And then slept again. Despite a few little hiccups along the way, this process has basically been repeated for the past seven years.
Fooled by the relative ease at which Jer and I parented our first child we jumped at the idea to add to our lovely little family. Avery was (and has continued to be) so effortless we thought, why not? It’s obvious that our our combined gene pool results in a happy, sleepy, pleasant little human. Let’s do it.
Enter Jack.
Not wanting to rehash his entire babyhood (lots of sleeping, pooping and intermittent smiling) I can definitely say we thought we were in the clear, yet again. Smooth sailing for months and months. Years, really. And then, quite suddenly, the waters started getting a little rocky. It became evidently clear that Jack was not his sister. Jack was a horse of an entirely different color. One of those wild mustang-types that buck at the prospect of being tamed. We determined that Jack was going to take a little bit of work so Jer and I rolled up our sleeves and set out to do our best.
And man were we right
I was woken up this morning by the enticing and familiar smell of mint wafting across my nose. Sensing someone standing two inches from my face, I tentatively opened one eye. Staring right back at me was my three year-old son, smacking his gum. And, due to the fact that Jack does not have an endless supply of chewing gum at his disposal, I could only assume that he had jacked it from my purse. While I was asleep. At seven o’clock in the morning. Real nice.
And so the day went on.
After a slightly tumultuous morning consisting of chasing Jack away from various deathly situations and reprimanding him after numerous “butt” and “stinky” comments, I was ready to collapse by lunchtime. Grabbing the remote for a little Gilmore Girls-induced R&R I punched the button to access the TV menu.
Nothing.
I punched the button again.
And, nothing.
Having previously learned a little trick of shifting the remote batteries in their case to revive a little juice (from my 7 year-old daughter, no less) I opened the battery compartment and quickly learned my problem.
The batteries were missing. Mmm hmm. With sudden clarity, I whisked around the house checking various battery-powered devices only to discover that they were all missing their batteries. A firm nod from Jack confirmed my suspicions that, in fact, he was responsible for their relocation. At some point during our action-packed morning Jack had managed to remove all of the batteries from their various homes and moved them to his bedroom. *sigh.*
Seeing no end in sight for my exasperating day I retreated into my bedroom for some calming breaths. After I talked myself down from the ledge I turned around to find this:
Surely, we have shifted into some alternate universe where naughty is the accepted behavior and t-shirts are worn as underpants.
And little boys routinely wear size 12 Vans.
Willing myself to embrace the attitude of “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” I decided to move past my day’s frustrations and sit down with my little man to watch a movie. Settling comfortably into our alternate universe, I snuggled close to my baby boy, grabbed up the remote and pressed ‘Play’.
Ah. No batteries. And reality came crashing back.
Mindy
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Brandy
Whoa! Look how clean your floors are in that 2nd pic. Wait! What were you saying? Oh yes. Jack sounds like quite a handful. Sounds like he’s giving you lots of interesting stories. What a funny little guy!
Wow…my floors actually do look clean. It’s morning time…Jack hasn’t had a chance to ruin them yet.
Mindy
I’m jealous.
I can’t pull off that look.
Try it. You might be surprised.
Mindy
Jack is a HOOT but I need a nap just reading that. There you have it, the reason I never had kids….. I would be too sleepy all the time.
Ummm..haven’t you heard how much I love naps? Like a real kind of love? Unending? This is why.
Mindy
Just . . . boys. Sigh.
I’ll tell you what though, as hard as Hayden was at that age, Reagan is making up for it at 14. Oh the drama!
I hear this often. Boys are hard in the beginning and girls are hard forever. I’m a woman. I believe it.
Mindy
I remember days like that…still have them, just with bigger twists these days!
Oh, I can only imagine. I’m gearing myself up for the big guns to come later.
Mindy
And then they get older…and craftier…and decide to become dictators. Enjoy it now, because at least he’s still got a cute little baby face. And you have yet to come awake at 3 AM in a cold sweat wondering what he’s plotting next.
What was he doing with all the batteries? Do I even want to know??
♥Spot
I don’t even know what he was doing with them. I have a feeling that his floor vent played some kind of role. Lord. Help. Me.
Mindy
Funny how he and his sister are sooo different.
Very interesting way to wear a shirt.
My grandson steals batteries but he does it so that he can put them in his toys.
Boys really are a challange!
Stealing batteries for a purpose is slightly easier to handle. Random thiefing for a non-purpose is kind of hard to wrap my mind around.
Mindy