Parenting is not for the weak of spirit. It's takes courage, guts and a strong stomach. A tons of patience, quite a bit of self sacrifice and the ability to laugh.
If you don't want to clean bedsheets in the middle of the night or search poop for swallowed toys or be mortified by the outrageous things kids can say, then I would stay away from parenthood. It's not for you.
If you want a new adventure all the time, if you want to feel just how much love the human heart can hold, and if you're up for sleepless nights, then parenthood will be your grandest venture.
I hope, by being in this world, I have at least raised two wonderful children, ready to make the world a better place just by being who they are. And that's as sappy as I'm going to get in this blog entry. Because I'm a Mom, I could go on for pages about all the great things I think my kids are capable of or how many things they have done that have made me smile. I won't but I will share a funny story about Bean to remind us that children are a blessing, even when they have stretched our patience.
Bean, age 4 and Abu, age 2, are quick. And they're good at working together when they want to. I had only left the room for a few minutes when I came back into the living room to find that my beautiful white couch had been colored with Crayola crayon on the entire back.
Their movements are fast, as their little hands work on this big blank canvas. And it's not light crayon colors they have picked to make their masterpiece. No, it's blue and red. On a white couch. Their 'painting' is loud and vibrant. I close my eyes and take a deep breath before I speak. It's better for them if I take a few extra seconds to compose myself.
They just grin and show me their picture. Oh, kids. After a bit of scolding and reminding them that they can color all they want on their art paper. But not Mommy's furniture. I clean the couch and surprisingly it comes completely off with nothing more than warm water and some Dawn soap. Amazing.
Then a few days later Bean decides she needs to draw a picture on the wall near her toys. I sighed and scrub some more. It comes off, mostly.
Next, Bean paints the kitchen blue. I had just left to use the potty for one minute while they were busy painting some paper. One minute. That was it. A Mom does have to go potty sometimes, after all. And while I was gone she decided the cupboards needed new fronts. Most of the blue comes off them. Even today I can still see a bit in the seams. Oh, well.
This went on for quite a few weeks, where she was just constantly testing us. It was taxing and I was growing impatient with her. And she knew it too. Because with every new offense I was quick to send her to her room and not even listen to why she was trying to paint the walls or climb into the cupboards or push things down the drain. It didn't matter anymore, I was so tired of cleaning up after her. Part of me loved that she was a little scientist and was trying to figure out how things worked, the other part of me needed a break.
One day I had finished making spaghetti for dinner. I had dished out the girls' noodles but the sauce was still in the jar. It would be easy enough to spoon a couple of spoonfuls of the sauce on the hot noodles when we set down to eat. Bean was hungry and impatient to eat but I told her to wait a second while I went and got hero hottie from the bedroom.
He was on the computer and wanted to show me something. So quickly I looked but it was too long. Not more than a minute or two but we had young children. It was a minute or two too long.
Suddenly Bean comes running into our bedroom. Her eyes are wild and panicked. Her voice is frantic when she speaks. "It was an accident. It was an accident."
Oh, no. What did this kid do now? Hero hottie and I rush into the kitchen and freeze. My mouth falls open as I survey the damage done to my kitchen by a tiny four year old. It's beyond believing and we just stand there for a second, trying to collect our thoughts.
Bean is right behind us. "It was an accident." She's not being blamed for this mess.
Spaghetti sauce covers every surface of the kitchen from floor to ceiling. The red sauce forms nice patterns of splatter droplets all over the white walls and ceiling and it looks like a crime scene. The heaviest drops are on the ceiling right above where she had been standing and travel across the entire breadth of the kitchen, where they go right on down the opposite wall from where she was and onto the floor.
We look at her about to ask her how it happened. She interrupts, shaking her head. "It was an accident."
She's definitely thinks she's in trouble for this mess. And a mess it is.
I glance at Hero hottie and we both break into uncontrollable laughter. It was the worse mess she had ever made and 'It was an accident.' What must she have thought when she saw the spaghetti sauce everywhere and knew I was tired of her making messes on purpose. I'm pretty sure she thought she would be in time out forever.
She probably thought, "Oh, no. Mom's really going to mad this time. I have to convince her right from the start, even before she sees it, that 'It was an accident.'"
Apparently, she couldn't wait for us to dish up and she decided to put her own sauce on her spaghetti. But somehow, she got her spoon in the jar at just the right angle that when she went to pull it out, she must have caught it on the inside edge and it went pop, sending an arc of mess everywhere. Somehow, and only Bean could make a disaster of this size in less than one minute, the spoonful of spaghetti sauce managed to cover everything in round splats of wall staining red.
It took over two hours for me to scrub up that mess and it was still stained no matter how much elbow grease I put into it.
Now days, when ever a mess is to be had, we know which kid to ask first. And her first response is always, "It was an accident." She never means to make a disaster zone, it just seems to happen.
But at least, now she's old enough to clean up her own messes. :)
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