I yelled again. I abhor the yelling. It's so big and loud and it scares the girls. It accomplishes nothing. Except that it makes me feel a smidge better. Until the guilt sets in. Which takes about a nanosecond. It does not solve the actual problem. As I write this it occurs to me that maybe I'm not facing "problems", but normal childhood and normal parenthood. ??!! Really, could it possibly just be this hard?! Bah! 

My big girl is a stress ball. Her tummy hurts. She cries. A lot. She yells at me. Often. She worries. Often. I'm pretty sure that much of A's anxiety and stress comes from every single little (and big) thing not being perfect all of the time. I get it. I also like things to be just so. But the truth is, perfection is subjective. Often, I don't even get a little bit, what it is that she is looking for. I don't understand her picture of perfect. The crying that ensues from the lack of perfection that I don't even understand irritates me. A lot.  

I want to be better at this. I don't want to yell (or sigh that super irritated sigh or throw up my hands and walk away). I want to fold her up in a big hug and just be with her. Sit with those big emotions. I want to be this kind of mama, but so often I don't quite make it. Sometimes I do. 

It's hard to remember that she's not doing this to drive me bat shit crazy. It's not actually about me. (I know, what?! Not about me?!) She's just doing the best she can. But there's been crying and yelling and mean words over the clay that would not become a perfect dragon and also the paint got mixed in the wrong way and there was that time that the rock stack was not stacking properly. So much carrying on! And while these things don't matter even a little bit  to me, they matter to her. Each project and failed paint mixing is a big deal to A. I will say it again, it is a big deal. To her it is a big deal and that is what actually matters. 

But therein lies the challenge, right? How to teach our sweet, crying perfectionists that not everything is a big deal and that not everything will be just so all of the time, but that's ok, because not every damn thing is such a big damn deal! But also don't go diminishing their feelings and ideas. Walk the balance. It's really effing tricky!

So, I have one kind of Martha Stewart-ish trick that I trot out as often as I can. It's a good trick and I will tell you about it in a minute. You should care because it's a good trick. (It's about berry stains) Anyway, why, this need that everyone know that I have a Martha Stewart worthy trick up my sleeve?

Here it is: I want to be like her. Not the jail part, but the beautifully organized  color coordinated part. I am not this. I am not this because I have this other desire that is winning (also I don't have the money): I have children with whom I want to spend my time. (Even though they bug the shit out of me sometimes.) I want to read them stories and make them good meals and I want to swim in the river and climb small mountains and grow food in our garden and volunteer an insane amount of hours in their classrooms and in their school gardens. This is where I am choosing to put my time. 

Post party let down is a real thing. And it is so sad. We, at my house, are moping around and feeling super bummed. We just returned from our most anticipated trip of the year. It is 5 days of camping with our people on the most beautiful river. And we are missing it! And we are sad. I know why, but my girls don't know. And the truth is, they're happy to be home too, so they are confused. AKA: Whiny!

We ate amazing food community potluck style every night, we swam in the river and dallied in the sand and we slept in our tent and we listened to really good home grown music every night, but mostly we basked in the love and safety that is our tribe. Our community. It feels so good and so safe and coming home with our small nuclear family is lonely. And boring. And messy and chore filled.

then we all come home from said trip and have to take care of all the bullshit of unpacking and cleaning and on top of that we don't have any damn groceries in the fridge. Fuuuuuck! On a side note about groceries, I was bemoaning the fact that grocery shopping with kids is the woooorrrrst and my girlfriend and I decided to coordinate trips and she would watch my kids for an hour and I would watch hers. Boom! Problem solved.

It is early on in the summer vacation days and she is pushing my buttons. A lot. I took the girls to my mom's house to play in the creek. It was mostly amazing and perfect and cooling and idyllic. Except when A was driving my crazy. I was not making parenting look good. The following conversation actually happened (it's tedious, so maybe just skim it):

She said, "I want to change into my dry clothes." I said, "If you're going to play at the creek more, you should stay in your wet clothes." She said, "No. I want to change and play here in my dry clothes." I said, "No, you should stay in your wet clothes so that you don't get your dry clothes wet and then have no more dry clothes and you will be wet and sandy and uncomfortable for the drive home." She said, "No. I want my dry clothes." I said, "Annabel, you should stay in your wet clothes until you're all done at the creek." "No, I want to change." Exasperated sighs and eye rolling. (both of us)

My mom said, "You're kind of controlling." Annabel said, "Yeah Mom, you're kind of controlling." Bah! Oh for fuck's sake! Really?! 

That is the dumbest conversation I have ever had. I warned you, you should have skimmed it. If you did, good direction following by you. Truthfully, I didn't care if she wore her wet clothes or her dry clothes. I was irritated that she wouldn't do what I had asked so I dug my heels in and she dug her heels in. There was a lot of heel digging. 

If this has happened to you and now you know exactly how to handle it, please let me know because I have no fucking idea! 

When A was very little I noticed that everyone, really everyone, even my hippie feminist mother started conversations with her by saying something like this, "You have such a pretty smile," or "I love your bouncy curls," or "Your dress is so pretty." On the surface these may seem like benign comments, even sweet. But, maybe because I'm high strung and a little sensitive, I found them to be condescending and insidious. If we open with "you're pretty" the message is clear: The most important thing is how you look. Even if we talk about something else next, the first and most important thing is that you are cute, pretty and well behaved.

I'm not an idiot, I get it that how we look is what people see and that it's an easy opener when you don't actually know someone. But little people don't always (or ever) get the intricacies of social interaction. They aren't thinking about how that woman on the bus just didn't know what else to say, but is wishing she had grandchildren and so she opened with the only thing she could think of. I promise the sweet babies are not having these thoughts. 

They are thinking "I'm pretty, I'm pretty, I'm pretty. Pretty dress, pretty curls. Pretty." They like being complimented. So they keep trying to do the things that got them those compliments. Ick! Is this what we want our little ones striving for?! Not me.

Here are some things to say instead: 

1. Wow! You are really good at climbing stairs. You must be strong.
2. My name is ______. I have 2 nieces, they're 5 & 3. How old are you?
3. [To a child carrying a book] Oh, I love to read! Do you have a favorite character in that book?
4. Come here often? [I'm not kidding! But on review, maybe it should be softened up a bit] I love this park [bookstore, restaurant, whatever], have you been here before?
5. You're doing a great job riding the street car [bus, subway, whatever].
6. [To a child with scraped knee] Oh, I've had a scraped knee before. Were you running fast when that happened?
7. That looks like a heavy backpack. You must be strong. And have a lot of cool things to bring along. [See what I did there?! Double compliment!]
8. What a healthy snack you're eating! Good for you. What's your favorite vegetable?
9. I like the way you're talking to your mama. You seem like a really nice person. [Is this over the top? I think it might be a little much, but I'm leaving it on the list anyway, because, be nice to your mamas!]

Also, these comments are not gender specific. You could say these things to boys or girls. Why oh why are we assigning gender roles to our small little people?! Just let them be. We begin sending the secret and coded message to girls at such a young age that it is good when they are pretty, quiet and clean. I asked my husband and a thoughtful friend of mine with a boy what people say to boys. Both of them said that people either said nothing (What?! WTF? Nothing?!) or they commented on the boys being tough. That is just as effed up as telling girls they are pretty. I'm sorry?! Nothing? We're not talking to little boys?! Or we're complimenting them on their toughness. Again, ick! And no fucking wonder we have some problems!

The job of a full time parent includes a lot of tasks, none of which is quite as important as the moral and ethical compass we must constantly provide for our little people. Ok,  an overstatement you say, fine. Maybe feeding them is more important, but assuming that we are filling them with calories on a daily basis, the moral compass thing is super important. And it's constant. All. The. Time. All the time they are watching us and they are gauging our responses to different tricky encounters and situations. We're it. Did I mention it's all the time that they are watching? Except when they're sleeping, but be careful, because they're tricky little monsters and sometimes you think they are sleeping and you admit out loud that you think your neighbor is totally crazy town and also kind of a bitch and then it turns out that the sweet monsters (the kids, not the neighbors) are actually just lying in their beds being super quiet hoping you'll say something interesting that they can bring up at the next inopportune moment. Or not, maybe your kids go straight to sleep every night. Whatever.

Anyway, the moral compass thing: I just had a very trying visit with my in-laws and I spent an exorbitant amount of time doing a shitty job explaining that the way their well intentioned grandparents love them is not intended to make them feel bad. (Even though it kind of does sometimes) Explaining how,  if a friend was treating them the way their grandparents sometimes do, they should get new friends, yet also, asking them to understand these 85 year olds who still think it's ok to yell a lot for no real reason and I'm asking my girls to tolerate it. My in-laws' communication is not evolving into a kinder more understanding dynamic as they age. In fact, since I have known them, it has devolved. My girls pick up on this. They don't like getting yelled at for sure, but they also don't like listening to someone else get yelled at. The whole thing is stressful and I'm wondering about the example I am setting. Because so far, my actions are telling them that sometimes you have to accept love that doesn't make you feel good and the truth is, I don't believe this. I don't want them to settle for a love that doesn't make them feel awesome. I need to do a better job because we get to define what kind of love we will take. It is not the giver of said love. It's the receiver.  I get to decide and my sweet babies get to decide. 

Today I hated them. I know that hate is a strong word. If I accidentally use that word to describe anything other than murder or mosquitos buzzing in my ear, Little E will remind me, "Mama, hate is a strong word." Yes, I know. But I think, for a moment, I actually might have hated them. The squabbling, the crying, the super irritating defeatism that rears it's ugly head during A's daily homework, the crying, the crying! That fucking crying is just so loud. 

It's over, the crying that is, and they're in bed trying very hard not to fall asleep and I no longer hate them. 

I once accidentally voiced a sentiment not even as strong as hate on Facebook and I was met with a barrage of mean comments all suggesting that maybe I shouldn't have chosen to be a mother and certainly I had no business being a stay at home mother since clearly I was bitter and angry. 

I was too new at being a mama to know that those commenters were idiots. Instead, I believed them. I thought that if this job was kicking my butt, which it was, and that sometimes I didn't love my babies very much, which sometimes I didn't, or if, God forbid, I even hated them a teeny tiny bit for a second, or that sometimes I hated the job itself, that I must be bitter and angry at best, and probably also incompetent. Because I was awash in feelings of shame and embarrassment and self doubt, I didn't have the where with all to process the fact that after a patient vomits in a nurse's face and he mutters on his way out of the room, "This fucking job," no one calls him bitter and angry. No one suggests that he shouldn't be a nurse. People think, "Yep, that is one hard and messy job." When a Nike exec complains about all the after hours work he puts in, no one suggests that maybe he shouldn't have chosen that career. People commiserate. It's a difficult climate and they suggest that Nike should not be expecting its employees to put in so much extra time. And they suggest that they should all go out for a drink and trash Nike for the evening. 

There is little of this type of forgiveness in the parenting world. If you have chosen to be a stay at home parent (or any kind of parent) you are supposed to smile and wax sentimental about how fast the time is going. I do that. I do, because, truly the time is flying. Just like all the elders of my community told me that it would. And much of it (some of it) is very sweet time, but let's not pretend that we don't sometimes hate it a little bit. And sometimes, some of us, hate the sweet babies a little bit too. Just a little bit. And just for a second. It's ok. There's nothing wrong with us. This job is really hard and the hours suck. So does the pay. And, don't even get me started on the benefits package. 

And we love it too. And, holy shit, do we ever love these babies. This is a love far more fierce than I ever imagined. Sometimes I look at them and I think that I truly might just burst or overflow with how much muchness is now contained in my body. They are filling me up. And I love them. And the job of keeping them safe and happy and fulfilled and in clean clothes and sleeping on clean sheets and eating healthy yummy food and peeing in a clean bathroom is just a really fucking big job that never ever ends and that is exhausting. And, the truth is, parts of it, like the bathroom cleaning and clothes washing are not very fulfilling.

And then this (that wonderful little naked baby on the right) happens and again with the super fullness. We are lucky to have this ridiculously difficult job and when we are done hating it, we'll be grateful.

Cut yourself a break. It's ok.