Raising a three-year-old, and children in general I suspect, is a lot like having an unmedicated bi-polar disorder. One minute you’re filled to the brim with warm, fuzzy love that would throw you in front of a semi-truck for the sake of this child. The next, you’re the semi-truck out to coat your grill in the blood of that same child.
…Maybe I shouldn’t have used those words…
Because, in the end, it’s the first minute, the one full of squishy love, that wins out. You never regret having that kid, or, at least, I sure don’t. Most of the time you’re squishing your cheeks like a happy hamster at every little thing they do. And every so often, when you least expect it, something will happen with them that blasts your eyes open like an LSD trip and make you fully comprehend, like Moses seeing the creations of God, that having a kid is what turned your life into heaven.
And then your toddler pees his pants for the fourth time that day, even though he’s been potty trained for over a year, and you have to stop yourself from slapping the pee-drenched underwear in his bewildered little face. Does the cretin have any idea just how large a percentage his clothes make in your laundry load? Does he even comprehend the agony of having to deal with pee-scented furniture for the rest of its life because he was too preoccupied by his show?
So, like I said. Bi-polar disorder. *sigh* Guess being a mom does make you crazy.
Now the million dollar question is: are you going to be a good enough mom to make that crazy worth it? Because it isn’t just your life that hinges on your choices now. Freud sort of had a point when he directed everyone’s problems back to their parents. You can’t help but know there’s little escaping the fact that, one day, he’s going to look back and realize you took semi-truck mode too far, or even more likely, you were just too imperfect and stupid and caught up in something to do the right thing–or even knowing there was a thing to be made right. And at this age, when they’re peeing everywhere and making up the most perfect one-liners that you want to post all over the back of your car, semi-truck mode aside, you want to be the perfect parent. Why? Because, freak, they’re perfect. I’m not going to argue the logistics to you, it just is.
And I hate it when people say they use to think that about their kid and then they became a teenager. I don’t mean by admitting their not perfect, of course they’re not perfect, they’re human. I mean talking down teenagers like they’re the hell that disrupts your otherwise perfect little world…okay, I’m exaggerating, but you get what I’m saying, right? They can’t help being a teenager, any more than my three-year-old can probably help peeing himself when he’s too caught up in something interesting. It’s a stage of life that’s hard, smelly, and ruins all your underwear. The least parents can do is refrain from slapping said underwear in their kids’ faces and…writing a ranty blog about…how they give them loads of…
Ugh, every time! I swear, if I get a good rant going, it all comes to bite me in the butt. That’s it, I’m out.
…Crap, what’s he been doing up there while I’ve been typing?
Author T.S. Lowe 