Parenthood

You know how there are all these people and posts and articles detailing how amazing every single moment of parenting is?  How your kids grow up so fast and you need to savor every moment because you'll miss these little moments of joy when your kids move out?

Yeah, well, this isn't one of these posts.  This is one of those posts where I vent my abject hatred of some things--specifically two, though I'm sure there are a few more--relating to parenting that no one told me about when they described how motherhood would change my life so completely and how blissful I'd be every single day when arising to meet the new dawn with a renewed sense of love and adoration for my perfect children.

To be fair, there are a lot of neat things about parenting--like watching your children grow and mature and how cute they can be at certain times.  And that fuzzy look when they are first just waking up--unless you have to force them out of bed so they're not late for the bus.  A. just gave her first talk in Primary yesterday.  It was SO cute, even if I was the only one who could hear it and only because I was standing next to her telling her what to say.  It was still cute.

But I digress.  The point of this post is to vent my hatred towards these two things: dinner time and bed time.

Firstly, if you've been following me for any length of time,  you know how much dinner time stresses me out emotionally.  I dread dinner time.  Every night, I go to lengths to make a meal and J. will stand on his tiptoes and peer into the pan and say "Ew.  I don't like that."  I know to expect this, but yet, I still hate the whole routine.

More often than not, Wade will take J. aside and explain how rude it is to complain about dinner, which then results in a mini-temper tantrum and doors slamming.  By the time we all sit down to eat, dinner is marred.

The second thing I hate about parenting is the bedtime routine.  Both kids were amazing  sleepers as babies.  J. was sleeping through the night at six weeks and A. at nine weeks.  For the most part, once they're asleep, it's pretty smooth sailing.  But that's the the key phrase: once they're asleep.  Our routine goes something like this:

8:30: Announce that it's time for bed.  Both kids will reluctantly follow me upstairs.  We brush teeth and change into pajamas.  (Usually, J. opts to sleep in his clothes.  I don't fight it because it's a fight not worth having).  J. reads his two books that he brings home every night from school while A. does acrobats off J.'s bed.

As a sidenote, I'm going to confess something here that will probably garner me a straight ticket to hell.  I HATE listening to kids read books.  HATE IT!  It drives me INSANE.  I have to do everything in my power to keep from screaming every.single.night.  Just a tad higher on the hate list is reading children's books.  But I will do that any day over having to listen to a kid read.  But I do it because I think it's important that my kids enjoy reading.  And six years into this, J. is finally taking the initiative and reading by himself after I put in my obligatory 20 minutes.

8:50: Remove A. from J's bedroom and tuck her in.  Sometimes, if I'm feeling especially generous, I'll read her a short story.
8:51: Remove A again from J's bedroom.
8:52: Again.
8:53: Again.
8:54: Get bread for J. if he's eaten his dinner.
8:55: Get water.
8:56: Yell at A. to get back to bed.
9:00: Turn off the lights. Again.
9:01: Close A.'s door.  We have a childproof knob on the inside that she has yet to figure out.  Hey don't judge.  We always open it before we go to bed.  That way she can come wake me up at 2:00 am so she can sleep on the floor next to my side of the bed and spend the next 3 hours before I get up to exercise tossing and turning and poking me to put the blanket back on her because she's cold.
9:05: Tell J. to go to bed. Again.
9:06: Finish up what I need to get done for the day.
9:30: Tell J to go to bed.  Again.
9:35: Turn off light again.  Tuck J. into bed.  Again.

If we're lucky, both kids will be asleep by now.  Most nights, I can hear A. playing behind her closed door.  J. stays up and reads, and how do you get mad at a kid who is sitting in bed reading.  But still...

Some nights, they won't be asleep until after 10:30.  They don't seem to understand that I'm done at 8:30.  It takes everything in my power to keep it together for that last hour between 7:30 and 8:30 every night.  Do you have any idea how many times I glance at the clock in that 60 minute time span?  Hundreds!

Do you know what the greatest gift that I get on the rare occasion?  When A. falls asleep watching J. play Wii some time in that last hour of dread and I can just carry her upstairs and tuck her in.  On days where she's fallen asleep for any amount of time earlier in the day--she's no longer taking naps, but will fall asleep in the afternoon if you're not carefully watching her or entertaining her with your magic--she'll stay awake until 11:30.  Do you have any idea what this does to me?  There have been nights where we've just gone to bed with her still wide awake.

But, sometimes A. will fall asleep at 6:00 when I'm trying to get the last of dinner done and we can't get her to wake up (I mean, she's not unconscious or anything.  We're not just letting her lay there and thinking "geez, we can't seem to wake her up".  We just can't get her to stay awake long enough to eat) and I'll mistakenly think "Yes!  She's out for the night." only to be sorely disappointed at 9:00 when she comes padding downstairs all wide-eyed.  Oiy. How many times have we been fooled by that little trick!  Here--take a three hour nap at 6:00 in the evening.  Nice.

Please tell me I'm not the only one who hates bedtime.