Swimming uphill in mud

Parenting is hard. Really, intensely hard. 

I can't speak for anyone else in the parenting world, but some days as a stay at home mom are frustratingly awful. Those are the days I don't so much feel like a parent as some poor sod who has woken up to find that she is the head keeper of a deranged zoo where all of the animals have escaped and are trying to eat each other. 

And I have never in my life had one single class tell me what to do about carnivorous children. 

I have taken classes that tell me what the characteristics of 12 tone music are. I have taken classes that describe how calcium channels make your cardiac muscle cells work. I have taken classes on how to beautifully render the human body in two dimensions. 

WHY?  Why do I know nothing about what makes a three year old sob and whine and lament for 12 solid hours?  I almost can't blame Oliver for biting...I'm frustrated too.  Why do I stand dazed in my kitchen after two hours of breakfast, half way through a limp attempt at cleaning up only to hear the dreaded words, "I'm hungry?"

I thought I would be a mom who never got tired of parenting. I didn't think it would be easy, but I genuinely thought careful parenting would...do...something, and I would feed off of each success and wake each morning with energy and IDEAS!  

I can't even laugh. I just sigh and shake my head because I never anticipated the lobbying. If we really want to change the government, we should just send my children to Washington and tell them if they can negotiate free health care for everyone they can each have a bag of marshmallows and an iPad. BAM!! By the time they left, Democrats and Republicans, dogs and cats and doctors and lawyers would all be working together to push the legislation through so their ears would stop bleeding.  

But...now they are all asleep, so I'm back to being a courageous and forward thinking mother instead of the sniveling, staring husk I was just minutes ago. 

Ahhhh. Ain't life great.