Mama the Grouch

When I first started this stay-at-home gig, I could’ve been mistaken for the cheerful fairy. At the beginning it was all:

Time to put your shoes on!

Of course I’ll play princess puppy dance party with you!

Now it’s more like:

What are you doing? Come back here this instant!

If I catch you whining one more time, you'll get time out!
Also, I hate Jeeps!

I wonder if my children’s crabby moods are simply a product of my crabby moods, and we’re caught in some sort of ridiculous symbiotic relationship, where we all feed off of each other’s crabby-ness until we’ve all reached a point of crabby saturation.

That’s it, Jim. Take ‘er to shore.

Sometimes, I'm just so frustrated. I try to tell myself things like:

“They’re only 3 and 1. They don’t have any other ways to express their feelings.”

“Take a deep breath and assess - is this a fight worth having?”

But then I also tell myself things like:

“If you were happier, they’d be happier.”

“Why are you such a grouch to your own children?”

It’s hard to allow myself to be frustrated, without shaming myself for feeling frustrated. It’s hard to allow myself to be angry, without shaming myself for feeling angry.

I love my kids. I love that I can be at home with them while they’re still so little. So why am I so frustrated? So beat-down?

So grouchy?

Walker, Baby Ranger*

What, you don’t remember the hit Walker, Texas Ranger? Me either. Let’s move on, shall we?

Never forget...

Baby finally took her first steps. At 15 1/2 months.

Both my kids were late walkers. Preschooler didn’t learn until 16 1/2 months. Those 16 1/2 months were spent in anxious concern that because my daughter was a late bloomer in the walking department, she would probably have to roll and crab-crawl** to job interviews when she’s 23.

With Baby I had no compunction whatsoever. My kids were just late walkers. That’s just the way they rolled (or crab-crawled.) Whatever.

So screw developmental assessments!

There, I’ve said it.

At every baby well visit I’m handed a questionnaire and asked to tick off the items my baby is able to accomplish. The 12 month questionnaire went something like this:

Can your baby pick up a small object between his forefinger and thumb? Check.

Can your child speak at least one recognizable word besides mama and dada? Check.

Can your baby identify the area of an isosceles triangle. Uhhh....check?

But there’s one assessment question that has always screwed both my children over.

Does your baby walk yet, or at least cruise? NO.

Our pediatrician in Ohio responded to this with:

It’s probably nothing. BUT...

And that “but” would drive my new-parent anxiety off a cliff and into a ravine filled with thorn bushes, and probably bears.

OMNOMOMNOMNOM...

By the time Baby came into our lives, I was no longer concerned with her pokey gross motor development. And neither was her new pediatrician, who basically said, “Who cares? See you in 3 months.”

Lots of things are more difficult with 2 children. Time management. Shopping. Sanity.

But some things, like diaper-changing and expectations, are easier.

* I owe the entire concept of this title to my best friend's cat.

** Crab-crawl refers to this funky way of mobilization, where my kids scoot around on their butts using both hands and one knee in front of them. It's not to be confused with traditional crab-crawling.

Faster, my minions, faster!

Rhyme and Reason and Huh?

I love blogging. I love having an outlet to write, knowing that even an incredibly minuscule percentage of the population will listen to and think about what I write.

But sometimes it is hard to write about the bigger issues. Things like...

... the atrocity of the new TSA safety regulation

... the demise of journalism

... how the public touting of motherhood and “mommy blogs” is NOT a step back for the women’s movement

So I end up saying f---it, and I write posts about pie and horses instead.

Writing about the more important issues necessitates careful planning phrasing. I can’t just quickly spew out an opinion without regard to the sensibilities of others. To do so masks and weakens what is otherwise an important point. I’ve done that before, and I’m not proud of it.

Unfortunately, I haven’t the time to indulge in the careful planning that an opinionated post requires, mostly because somehow I’ve ended up busier as a stay-at-home mom than I was when I worked.

Maybe the above posts will become part of this blog. Maybe they won’t.

I guess I just want to reassure myself that this blog is more important than it seems. That it isn’t just a place to revel in my own ridiculousness or a place to vent my pain. That this blog plays a role in the larger social context.

That my opinions have worth.

That I have worth.

By the way, Preschooler thinks shadows are footprints (and I can’t convince her otherwise), and all my chairs are no longer chairs.

Why Math Makes Me Sad

I entered elementary school in the 1980’s and "new math" was all the rage. Times tables and memorization were tossed out the window, and arithmetic was taught solely by using little yellow blocks.

See? Math.

I didn’t get the point of those little yellow blocks. Were we to construct buildings? A small fort, perhaps? Certainly they had nothing to do with numbers. Consequently, after two years worth of math, I didn’t understand basic arithmetic operations.

Mom was dismayed to find we no longer learned times-tables. Her theory was that kids need to know the times-tables - even if they didn’t understand what they meant - so they could quickly recall the facts in “real life” situations. She drilled me with flash cards all summer until I completely mastered the times-tables forwards and backwards.

It worked. From thereon out I was placed in the advanced math track, all because of those flashcards. However, I figured if Mom made me do flash cards all summer to supplement what I should’ve learned in school, I must be really bad at math.

Math was thankfully benign over the next 6 years or so. But then came geometry... trigonometry... precalculus... calculus and things went downhill.

Uh-oh! She's struggling with math again!

Calculus especially became the bane of my existence. I was too proud to ask for help, but too stupid to know the answers. I was clearly bad at math. Would there be more flashcards?

Later, when I took my college entrance exams, I was somehow deemed qualified to skip pre-calculus and head straight to calculus. Calculus went well for a day and a half, but then they started using pictures.

It's a rainbow tent! Wait, that's math? Oops.

And then they started using big words.

This message was clearly forged by Lucifer himself.

I was in over my head. Once again, I proved to be too stupid to learn math. I studied every single day with the help of a teaching assistant with a thick Bulgarian accent. I ended up with a D.

I was very proud of that D. It meant I didn’t fail. And I never took math again.

Huzzah!

It wasn’t until I was 21 that I realized, despite the need for flashcards, I wasn’t bad at math - I was good at math. Or at least competent.

Lesson learned: flashcards are good for math. But bad for self-esteem.

We will destroy your soul.

Frauds, All Of Us

Not long after I wrote this post, Backpacking Dad wrote a post about Impostor Syndrome.

According to Wikipedia, those with Impostor Syndrome remain convinced internally they do not deserve the success they have achieved and are actually frauds, regardless of what external proof they may have of their competence.

Who hasn’t experienced this before? No matter what level of education you achieved or the accomplishment you’ve garnered who hasn’t felt like they’re just not good enough?

What is it that keeps us from believing...

...that we’re intelligent, and deserving of praise?

...that we’re a good partner, and deserving of love?

...that we’re a good parent, and deserving of trust?

What is it that makes us believe we’re just frauds, all of us?