Two phrases I have gotten super used to over the years when I say how many children I have are “you have your hands full,” and “you don’t look like you have six kids”. It used to offend me when people would say the latter because I could never really understand what a woman with six kids should look like. No, I am not the old woman in the shoe with white hair, a switch attached to my hip for those who get unruly, or some woman who didn’t lose the baby weight six times over. There isn’t a mother out there who doesn’t at times internally say “my kids are driving me crazy!”
Since having children, although every pregnancy was different, every child came out with their own personality and propensities, there were some consistencies. So I am going to let the cat out of the bag and tell all the things that I have said in my inside voice (inside my head), and instantly felt bad even though no one could hear me. What I have learned is there is a reason that some species eat their own and also a reason that we all share in the dirty little horrible thoughts that we conjure.
My hope is in moving my thoughts to my outside voice, I will make your life, and the life of every mother out there, less encumbered. Yes, we all have those days where we think the same malicious things, but that doesn’t make you, or me, or anyone bad, it makes us human. So… hold onto your moral compass, don’t judge, but if you do know one thing, when you judge, it ALWAYS comes back to bite you in the ass, that is one karma certainty!
My Kids are Driving Me Crazy – Secrets we all Share
We Have all Stopped Ourselves From Shaking
There comes a point in every mother’s life when we understand the woman or man who goes on trial for shaken baby syndrome. Don’t get me wrong, it is a crime and something that people have the ability to get under control by walking away.
But when your baby is staring at you, you have no sleep, you’ve tried everything, driven them around the block – 100 times, fed them all you can, rocked, swaddled, burped, coddled and still they cry and cry there is a little switch inside that just goes off.
It is like a toy that isn’t working correctly and you just want to slam the battery back a bit to see if you can shake something loose that is broken. Take heart, we have all had to get a grip so we don’t grip them too tightly!
Other Babies Cry, it is Mildly Annoying in Public, Your Baby’s Cry Mortally Wounds
I am a science freak by nature. One thing that makes sense is that when babies come out of the womb they naturally look like their fathers, why?
So in evolutionary times, men knew who a child belonged to. Second, the pitch of your child’s cry is genetically designed to make you go absolutely berserk. There is a predetermined genetic code that your child has to you, so when they cry, your instincts are to drop everything to keep them alive.
So, no it isn’t just you imaging it, when your baby goes on a tirade, it feels like you are going to step out of your body and do just about everything humanly possible to make it stop.
When my Kids are Driving me Crazy – Benadryl is a Heaven Sent
I think before we had children we all cringed a little when our parents would tell stories about grandma Jan rubbing brandy on our teeth to soothe our teething pain. But I don’t know many women who don’t have some Benadryl on hand to aid in sleeping once in a while, or to numb the pain for adults everywhere like when taking a plane.
I have researched every kid-safe drug out there and Benadryl is one of the most benign. Let me just ease your mind, if your child is hysterically crying in pain, then you are not a bad parent for giving them something to help soothe what is eating them.
If you follow the instructions, Benadryl will not only help them get some rest, it takes off the edge, so what you feel bad about doing for yourself, you are really doing for them too! There is no reason to let them suffer when they don’t have to!
When my Kids are Driving me Crazy, I Ask Myself “Was Being a Mom Really a Good Idea?”
No matter how much you love your child, it is undeniable that when you have kids you give up a whole lot of your own dreams, desires, and wants. They necessarily have to take a back seat to the crying infant in front of you.
So it is natural to think about what you wanted to be growing up and what you sacrificed and sometimes to question whether you made the right choice. It doesn’t mean that, if given the choice to do it all over again, you wouldn’t be right where you are. It just means that every decision that you make in life affects your future, but none as great as having children.
So you would be inhuman if you didn’t ever think about how great it would have been to move to a beach house and teach yoga oceanside in peace. Don’t beat yourself up over it, dreams are just that, dreams and the ones that you think of most often are the ones you didn’t take advantage of, but that doesn’t mean you would trade it for the world.
We Have Favorites – Sometimes one of My Kids is Driving me Crazier Than the Others
I know, I can totally hear the hiss boo on this one, but stay with me for a minute. Over the years, it is a running joke with my children who are old enough to get it now, that they are my favorite but to not tell the others. I hear parents say “I don’t have any favorites” all the time. So I am going to redefine what it means by “favorites’ ‘.
We all have that one child who is easy to get along with, they just get us, they don’t cause problems or challenge us, or we just have things in common. It is alright to be more similar to one child’s personality. Are they your favorite? Well, not technically, but although we love our children equally, that doesn’t necessarily always mean that we love them the same, in fact, I think that is almost impossible.
A little secret that mothers share is that sometimes it is just easier to be with one child more than the other, and that is totally okay. To play devil’s advocate, I know that some of my children probably love hanging out with their dad more, so I won’t take offense… it is what it is.
You Love Them But Sometimes You Really Just Don’t Like Them
Throughout childhood, your kids will go through many different phases and stages, and some of them are not so grand. As a parent, we all have those days when we wonder if we are good parents because of how crappy they are acting.
There has never been a point in my mother years when I don’t LOVE each and everyone of my children. I would be totally lying, however, if I said there weren’t moments and times in their lives when I didn’t like them very much. It is okay, when your children test you, to take a step back and love them but not really enjoy being around them. Some toddler years, some teenage years, are not fun, nor is being the bad guy all the time.
But the one thing that I have learned is that if you just let it be and ride it out, the phase will eventually pass and you will see your little human surface again. You don’t have to love their behavior or how they act all the time, but if you stick in there and love them unconditionally, the person you do like will eventually circle back… just be patient.
We all Lie to Our Children For One Reason or Another
I think we all hit a point in our adult years when we discuss things that our parents told us that turned out to be not so true. When my son was little one of his best friend’s mom, who quickly became one of my best friends, stopped our kids dead in their tracks when they heard the ice cream truck coming down the street.
William came into the house and said he heard the truck’s music, to which my friend responded “William, I told you that when they play that song it means that they are out of ice cream”. Why do I love her so much? It was genius, and she didn’t even skip a beat. Most importantly, my son now thought that same thing.
When I was young my sister and I used to fight about who got to put the detergent into the dishwasher (I know seems stupid now) so my mom would tell us that if we didn’t wash our hands immediately after toughing the soap, it would burn our hands clear through.
Never tested it so maybe I am going out on a limb assuming that it wasn’t the truth… There are things we lie to our children about sometimes to keep them safe, and then sometimes to keep us not bothered or bitching at us.
We All Have That Look That Lets Our Children Know When we are Alone, They are in Trouble
Just like when fighting with your husband, we all have that fAce that we present to our kids that lets them know they are crossing over into dangerous territory with what they are doing or how they are behaving.
The look is like a warning like “just wAit until we get into the car on the way home”. When I was little I used to see that look and try to extend the playdate for as long as possible while I tried to make amends for whatever indiscretion I was guilty of. I swore I would never do it to my kids, but guess what? We all have that parenting ugly that we don’t want others to see, but that is the point. It Is not our job to be kind and loving all the time.
It is our job to be a parent and to put them in their place to teach them how to be a better human being. So give yourself a break, they deserve the stink eye, and goodness knows if you don’t follow through with it, they won’t ever have a healthy fear of you as they should.
We Secretly Blame all of the Things we Don’t Like on the Other Parent’s Side
When we come into this world, we do so with our spirit and then our predetermined genetics, that is one thing that can’t be debated. Things like eye and hair color can usually be traced back to a familial line.
One secret we all share is that when something arises that we aren’t very happy about, poor athletic performance, anxiety issues, bad temper, we tend to place blame on our significant other’s family and lineage.
Unfortunately, it is usually those things that we don’t like about the people that we love which are closest to the very things we don’t like about ourselves… just saying, I will keep your secret if you keep mine, but it is worth some examination.
Raising children is difficult all the way along the journey
There are some stags that you wish would last forever and miss instantly after they have outgrown them and others that you wish you could blink and they would be behind you.
The one thing I can promise you, through all my years of experience is that nothing lasts forever, not the good, not the bad, but in the end, it all works out. Take heart in knowing that you are not alone, we all do and think things we aren’t proud of, but I am blaming humanity, because if we all do it, then there is a reason.
Try not to sweat the small stuff and find the humor and goodness in every stage and time in your child’s life. It goes by so incredibly fast and those days you wish you could speed up quickly become the ones you wish you could return to.
