Stained Glass Secrets

By: Elexis Penner

We Can Do This The Easy Way, Or We Can Do This The Hard Way

 

So we were doing some fishing the other weekend, off a dock. The kids were fishing and Bruce and I were sitting nearby, RELAXING. Yes, my dear young mothers – this is no urban myth.

 

I looked over at the kids and said, “I remember when we used to tie weights to the end of your lines.”

Their jaws dropped slightly, “You tied WEIGHTS – to our LINES??!!”

 

“Well yeah, sometimes we just wanted a minute to relax without worrying about someone getting a hook in their eye. There were four little rods waving around on one boat, and you never wanted any help with casting. This way, you were happy, we were happy. And besides, it was only when you were reeeeally little. Once you got bigger we gave you hooks, but we bent them in so you couldn’t hook anyone.”

“So we never could have actually caught any fish.”

“No. But really, your attention span for fishing was only around 15 minutes, and what are the chances you’d have caught one anyway? You did eventually graduate to real hooks… “

 

They looked at us as though their whole childhood had been one giant lie. I mean, a hook in the head wouldn’t exactly have been a party either. But nooooo, no one’s thanking us for THAT.

 

And for a minute I thought, “Yeah, that kinda sucked.” Maybe we shouldn’t have done that. But then I remembered that everyone was happy in the moment, and had freedom and independence – and we hardly ever catch any fish in that lake anyway.

 

In our parenting strategy (ha!) we did some things the hard way. We restricted time spent on TV and gadgets. We let the kids help with things, even if it meant a mess and ended up taking four times as long. Even now, sometimes when I get started on a recipe, I remember the sound of the kitchen chair, sliding across the floor towards me, “I’m coming to help you, Mom!” It’s almost Pavlovian.

 

We took them places even though most outings were much like herding a pack of squirrels through the museum, the zoo, the police station, whatever.

 

We also did things the easy way. Some days had no restrictions on screens. Some days one of us would ride herd, while the other one quickly got some stuff done. Some days we just called Grandma.

 

I realize now how important it is to cut ourselves some slack during the toddler years (or any years, really). But especially when we don’t get as much sleep as we need. Those first years with newborns, or nights then the kids were sick, we thought we were going to DIE. We were sooooo tired. It messes with your mind. You’re not yourself – you can’t function. Except the crummy part is that you don’t really know that this is what’s going on. You just think that you are a horrible, emotionally incompetent person.

 

I remember being told that it takes two years for your body to recover from having a baby. And I thought, “That’s ridiculous. I feel fine.” What I didn’t realize was that I didn’t actually feel fine until two years after we stopped having babies. Fine feels different.

 

Many of the super-awesome-amazing things I tried so hard to do (think themed birthday parties) left me so stressed that I ended up yelling, and what was always meant to be a happy time was over-shadowed by mom rage.

 

Now I try really hard to let go of small stuff. One of the kids came home from school with an assignment – she needed to know the time of day she was born. “Around supper…” I said.

“Around supper??!!! All of my friends have EXACT TIMES!!!! 4:54pm. 7:10am. And I get AROUND SUPPER??!!!!”

“Okay. You were born at 5:26pm.”

Her eyes got all squinty and she says, “You’re just making that up.”

I raised an eyebrow, “YOU can’t prove ANYTHING.”

Okay, maybe I let a few too many things go.

 

The easy way comes with a cost, but if it cuts down on mom rage it might just be worth it.