Keepin' it Real

It occurred to me last night that my blog mostly (okay, only) features the positive aspects of parenting and life in general.  I tend to be a glass-half-full type of person, so this kind of makes sense.  However, today I thought I would dedicate a post to the not-so-awesome experiences that are part of my days and that make me stronger and wiser.

There are those few days when most everything seems to go right and I go to bed feeling like, "Man, I nailed it today."  But more often than not, at least a few things go wrong.  There are those types of days where my toddler is screaming at me because I gave him the wrong snack (which happens to be the one he specifically asked for) or put the TV on the wrong show (which also happens to be the one he specifically asked for).  These moments are especially difficult when it's not even 7:00am and my eyes haven't even opened all the way.

There are those days when my infant and his internal colic-clock know that it is exactly 6:00pm and therefore time to start screaming.  This is usually the same time of day when I'm trying to feed the big boy, or give him a bath, or do something productive.  When will I learn?

One day my two-year-old, who happened to be diaperless due to a diaper rash that needed to air out, decided to poop not once, but twice on the floor.  I take that back, the first time was on top of his changing table, where I found him standing up and trying to reach something on top of his dresser.  The second time, he had stepped in it and tracked it all over the playroom and given me two extra loads of laundry to do, in addition to washing all the affected toys and affected child immediately, all the while gagging and remembering why I never want another puppy.  (Remember, there's a baby somewhere in the house that still needs tending to while all of this is going on.)

And speaking of babies, one day I might have left him in the swing-like contraption long enough to run to the bathroom and heard frantic screaming before I could even get down the hall.  When this happened, the only information I could get from Davis is that Reece was somehow hit in the head with a Lego.  Hmmm...Oh, and because of this little incident I might have raised my voice at the perpetrator and felt very guilty for the rest of the night.  All I could do was apologize and try to learn from the experience.

In an effort to do something fun as a family one morning before Derek went to work, I decided we would go to White Deer Park to see some rescued owls being released back into the wild.  They were to also have other animals to see, and I thought Davis would love it.  Well wouldn't you know, this was the one morning Reece decided to take a very long nap, which put us leaving a few minutes later than we wanted to be.  Well, we arrived right on time, except there was no parking left, so we had to park across the street and walk.  As we approached the festivities from a distance, the last owl was being released.  We did get to see it briefly because it hung out on a nearby tree branch for a little while.  The other animals must have been no-shows because we never saw them.  Oh, and I stepped in a fire ant hill with flip flops on and spend a good bit of time slapping ants off of my feet and ankles, and the rest of our time at the park taking deep breaths and resisting the urge to put my foot in the drinking fountain.

So as you can see, it's not all rainbows and butterflies around here.  Mostly, but not all.  I love my children more than words can say, and I wouldn't trade even these moments for anything in the world.

Did I mention that all of these things have happened in the past three days?