Parenting On A Soap Box

Due to my lack of initiative and what some may consider a "ridiculously crazy" schedule, this is my return to blogging after a long and event filled absence. I hope the material isn't a repeat but I find myself obsessing over the same pet peeves day in and day out.

I am reminiscing about a time before I had kids, when I knew what all parents did wrong including but not limited to, my parents, my husbands parents, my grandparents and my personal favorite, complete strangers. Oh yes, I had all the fucking answers on how to raise the perfect kids and no one else seemed to have it figured out.

I found myself constantly critiquing my parents for things like, not letting me take piano, spanking me too much, letting my baby sister be a picky eater, not spanking my younger brother enough, and not taking me to Disneyland. How could they have been so dense when I obviously could see everything they had done wrong? Strangers were especially fun to judge because their kids were pretty fucked up and I could see just in passing what they were doing wrong. Spoiling them, letting them run through a grocery store with boogers dripping from their gross little noses, red faced screaming toddlers that ruined my night out at Applebees, and extremely dangerous behavior like riding bikes in the road or letting them eat food that was obviously a choking hazard. How could they? They obviously did not take parenting as seriously as I did. HA!!!

Then I had kids. The dream like state of bliss lasted until we got home from the hospital with our oldest, we put her on the couch in her carrier and my husband and I stared at her and then at each other. What now? The guidebook I assumed everyone was forgetting to read never arrived in the mail and this shit show was just beginning. It was ugly from go. Cracked, bloody nipples and no sleep on top of a screaming baby that took shits in her onesie that defied gravity (you have diarrea in your hair?) to more recent stints with Sharpies on walls, choking on chicken, and free fall dives off trampolines.

I had to admit, not only did I not have the answers, I had no fucking clue what I got myself into when my husband gazed at me with a horny look in his eye and said "Lets make a baby". My parents started looking like the roman gods of parenting and people who were in the same boat I was in had my admiration and my prayers. The people I can't fucking understand now are the ones with no kids and lots of instruction. They seem to have all the answers as to what I should do with my sassy, out of control, snot filled, cussing, piss pant little rugrats. They seem to think that you can dress children in adorable outfits and they will act like adorable people. They don't fucking grasp that now it's not just my life I am in charge of but every need of these small creatures. Food, shelter, teaching, discipline, patience, love, enough cuddles, not too much sugar, enough kisses, enough books, not too much TV....the list goes on and on. I take it seriously and I think most people do but it is not what it looks like in the Hershey's commercial(I wanted to laugh)...a young beautiful mom on a blanket with her dapperly dressed young son in a sunny park laughing and sharing chocolate kisses. That my friends is MAYBE .05% of parenting. The rest is a hot ass mess. It's ugly and hard and dirty and scary and uncertain and unending. It goes too fast and feels like it will never end. It's what my parents had figured out all along, you do what you can do with a lot of love and hope for the best. So enjoy the view from your glass house...it looks a lot different with fingerprints and Sharpie all over it.