*side note: I find it very disturbing that a lot of videos are being done in cars. If I ever get hit by someone doing a lip syncing video while driving, I will not be happy. At all. I will probably bite them. Hard.
As I scroll through my Facebook news feed, I get inundated with trite quotes, trying to be deep but really intending to inflict as much guilt upon the reader as possible, telling me to embrace every moment of my children's every living second because I'll never get it back. Time is precious, therefore, everything my kid does is precious, and if I'm not living in the moment, I'm wasting precious time. Like, right now, I'm wasting precious time by not being upstairs with my children in their overheated room at my parents' house that smells like farts, chlorine, and something unidentifiable but definitely dead, drinking in the precious moments of them fighting with their cousins over who gets to play Minecraft next. Is that one word or two? I don't know.
The problem I have with those saccharine quotes, often superimposed over a nice picture of a child or a flower or a yak, is that I happen to be an introvert who lives in the real world. Why should that matter, you ask? Well, as an introvert, I get drained by being around too many people too often. Just completely worn out, and this is around people I enjoy immensely in small doses. The problem with kids is that they happen to be people. Some days (okay, at different points every.single.day), they happen to be people with whom I would not choose to associate if I wasn't bound by law to do so. They have personalities that often I enjoy, but then I often don't enjoy them either. It's those times where I'm not enjoying them that I get annoyed with the idea that I am meant to savor everything they do as a precious moment. I just want them to go away, or, better yet, I want to go away. Finding the energy to hover over my children like a helicopter, enjoying everything they do all the time even when I'm not enjoying what they're doing, is not reality. So, to those who create those quotes on those pretty pictures, I have to say it: suck it. You either don't have kids, or you are living in a fantasy world where your child is the constant center, all other relationships are completely ignored, and you're inwardly dying a slow, precious death. Congratulations to you, and I have pills if you need them.
So, now, for your entertainment and possible harsh judgement, I will share with you some (just a handful; barely a sampling) times when I did not find my inner Fantasy Super Mom (mainly because she doesn't exist) and think my children utterly precious:
- Pregnancy, when all my internal organs were squashed to fit an MRE package and I became a woman capable of producing enough methane to heat entire Scandinavian towns in the dead of winter.
- Childbirth, when I was laid out on a cold operating table, nekkid and my no-no special places freshly shaved by a male nurse.
- Having a newborn pee in my mouth.
- Getting covered in poop too many times to count.
- Having my child cover herself from head to toe in Vaseline. You know what should work to get that out? Dawn. They use it on the oil spill animals. Guess what doesn't work on a Vaseline-covered child? Dawn. Great for penguins. Lousy for children.
- Retrieving shoes off the roof.
- Finding my iced tea maker has been turned into a cooking pot for every cereal and cracker in the pantry.
- Finding my son in the front yard with nothing on but a smile, running through the sprinkler, because he couldn't take the 2 minutes to look for his swimsuit which he swore he couldn't find even though it was in the place where it's always kept and where he has found it every other time.
- The endless bad jokes. I can't even fake laugh anymore. Really, I'm doing them a favor. Kids have got to learn that not everything they do is a winning effort deserving praise and adoration. "Knock knock." "Who's there?" "Cow." "Cow who?" "I love chicken." Seriously. Not precious. Or funny.
- Tantrums. All of them.
- The endless barrage of tattle tales.
- Homework. Why do they even give out homework to first graders? I did my time. I graduated. I find it supremely un-precious having to sit and go through school all over again.
- The daily Cooking of the Amazing Dinner and the daily "I Don't Like That" followed by the daily "You're Gonna Eat It or You're Gonna Starve" routine. I am not a short order cook any more than I am a tropical fairy queen.
- Laundry.
Finding the energy to be completely plugged into my children every second of every day on top of trying to maintain some small part of the Person I Was Before I Became a Parent on top of keeping my house clean while little people follow me and destroy my handiwork on top of feeling guilty for not having my children signed up for sports, activities, cooking classes, and dog training courses (because all of that means more people), is impossible. This does not mean I don't adore my kids. This does not mean I don't find plenty of precious moments to enjoy each day. It just means that I cannot center my world around my kids because, like I said, they're people. People, in large doses, suck my soul dry, and knowing that it's okay to not find everything they do wonderful means that the special moments remain special, the tough moments become learning opportunities for all of us, and the balance between the two means I'm still a human raising humans to be humans that other humans want to be around.
And just in case my cynicism is leaving a bad taste in your mouth, I will leave you with this piece of optimism.
I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that every day, I will, without fail, find one thing very, very precious that I will enjoy immensely no matter what has happened during the day:
Bedtime.
Bedtime.
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