You have both the kids, their in the car screaming for toys, binkie and want to get food. You think to yourself, “That’s it, you’ve driven me to drink!” I finally get it ladies, I now know why you drink so much and I want to share what I got to go through that you experience all the time.
Two Saturdays a month, my wife teaches a sewing class that she enjoys doing and loves seeing all these kids wanting to develop this amazing talent of sewing. That being said, I get to be home with the kids, just me and them. I love being a parent where I get to have my kids all to myself, but you don’t always realize what it’s really like to be a parent until you have them without the help of the other parent.
The morning had started out great, we were getting things done, sitting on the couch watching Sword in the Stone and putting a foam sward in the couch cushions like he was pulling it from the stone just like on the movie. Once the movie was over we decided it was time to get out of the house and get a few errands done before nap time.
Getting the kids into the car isn’t usually difficult, but for some reason when you are alone and there is no one else there to try and distract your toddler it suddenly becomes a lot harder. My son wasn’t having it unless I would bribe him with a sucker or some kind of incentive to get in the car. Finally, seat belts were on and we were ready to go.
I thought it would be fun to go to the downtown mall, or capital building, just to run around and get some energy out of his little body. The weather was too cold to do anything outside which is why I thought an inside adventure would be a good idea. Apparently getting into the car was adventure enough and before you knew it both kids were asleep by the time I got to the light at the corner. Perfect!
As parents we all (or at least I hope we all) know that nap time is golden time. If your child misses their nap it could totally ruin your entire day. So when I saw that my kids had fallen asleep in the car I was worried that this would throw the rest of the day off because my son usually naps once and it’s not until later. This was going to be a problem, but I had to at least get to the bank while we were in the car and could keep them inside by using the drive thru. Thankfully the sound of the tube awoke my son so he only slept for about 15 minutes, but who knew that would make the entire day a complete disaster.
Nap time at our house usually comes around 1:00 pm and can last up to three hours, giving you plenty of time to get a lot of things completed because you don’t have a screaming child in your arms or another screaming child nipping at your heals. As I laid my son down for his nap it went pretty smoothly and I told myself that I would be able to do so much now that he was sleeping. Apparently my daughter didn’t find this amusing and decided she didn’t want to sleep. As a matter of fact, she would only be calm if she was in my arms.
I tried laying on the bed with her close to me seeing if maybe we both could get a couple moments of rest, but that wasn’t the case. She was excited to have her dad with her and wanted to play and have all the attention on her, which I can’t blame her for that.
Just as she was drifting off and my head was starting to get heavy I heard the sound of my son getting up. It had only been an hour and half, how could he be waking up already? This wasn’t a good sign because once he wakes up, he is up for good. I was able to let my daughter sleep on her own now, and now would devote my full attention to my son.
Mind you our kitchen has been under construction (post coming soon) and there were a couple things that needed to be done to complete the final bit of our kitchen remodel. Those things clearly can’t happen when you have a toddler that wants to get into every single thing, tool or kitchen utensil, unless you are paying complete attention to him.
We made messes, cleaned them up, made messes, cleaned them up again. This process repeated itself until the moment my son heard the door start to open and he screamed, “MOMMY!!!” I get it ladies, that moment your partner in parenthood walks in brings so much joy to your soul. But I finally understood why moms have been driven to drink (for the record we’re talking Diet Coke here). We got in the car and I instantly needed to be taken to a gas station to purchase the 96 oz Diet Coke. I don’t know what it is, but it calms me and helps me realize that everything is going to be okay.
As parents we tend to turn to something when our kids drive us to the point of insanity, and maybe it’s chocolate, food or Diet Coke. Whatever it is, you are going to make it through the tough days with many more blessed days. I can’t tell you how many times I have been able to spend days with my kids and everything goes as planned (actually, that’s pretty rare). I just enjoy the time I get to be with them and making sure they know that I love spending time with them. I don’t think anyone is a bad parent if they have to have a little something to make it through their day. Parenting is hard, but it’s so worth it and thankfully Diet Coke makes it so much better for me.
