Parenting is so hard. At least for me. It feels impossible to be a good parent and to raise respectful, independent, kind, aware, hardworking children.
How I've Been Feeling Lately
My kids never listen to me. They never do what I ask them to do or what I want them to do. They annoy each other constantly. They tattle. They yell. If I hear, "Stop!" one more time, I might kill someone. They (Ever) roll their eyes and sound annoyed all the time (just as I do). They carry things around the house and leave them wherever. Then they walk by the out-of-place items a million times and somehow never notice them. They become inexplicably and completely blind when they are looking for something. They still don't eat over their plates. They don't even know how to eat with a fork. They (at least two of the three) almost never remember to take their dishes to the kitchen when they're done, despite being asked to do so multiple times a day for their entire lives (at least since they were two). They take an hour to do something that should take 10 minutes. They don't know how to hurry. They don't know how to turn off lights. They (Wren) cry ALL the time. They fight over stupid things, like Pokemon cards. They don't even know anything about Pokemon besides the cards (which we first started acquiring in Happy Meals) and maybe stuff they've been told by Luc and Amelie.
The not-listening thing and the bothering-each-other thing seem to have been getting worse in recent months. Every night I feel like a failure because I'm impatient and mean and I yell. But I hate having to ask multiple times for everything, and usually they don't listen unless I yell. I'm so tired of spending all day every day trying to get kids to do things - simple things, like clean up after themselves. In the Little House books, the kids work to the bone all their waking hours, and I can't get my kids to put their own stuff away? Or eat breakfast, clear their dishes, and brush their hair and teeth in the morning? Tiny would rather spend an entire afternoon in her room alone doing nothing than spend 10 minutes putting her laundry away? I'm so tired of trying to think of rewards, punishments, systems to get them to do things (and not do things).
Today
This morning I tried to squeeze in a reading comprehension lesson with Ever before I took the girls to Susan's for homeschool. I had a document on my computer that contained a passage and then questions about the passage, and the answer to each question was right below the question. I told Ever not to scroll down past the passage. Then after she finished reading, I did the scrolling and asked the questions because I didn't want her to see the answers. We came to a question for which she needed to look back at the passage, so I let her scroll up to the story. She started scrolling back down to the question, and I kept saying not to go too far. She said she had it, but then I grabbed the computer because I was afraid she would accidentally see the answer. She yelled at me in such a mean, mean way. Like in the olden days, when she and I had power struggles and I would get a tone and she would respond by yelling really terribly. I sat silently for a few moments. It was totally unacceptable, but I was super upset and didn't know how to handle it. I got up and told Tiny (who'd been sitting on my lap), "Let's brush your hair and teeth, Tiny," and took her to the bathroom. There, I started crying about Ever, and Tiny started crying about Jim because he was leaving for Big Bear right after work and she wouldn't see him again until Sunday morning. I took her out to the garage to say goodbye to him one more time before he drove off to work.
When we went back in the house, Ever was acting totally normal, interacting with her sisters, and I was so disturbed by the lack of remorse or apology. I came upstairs and cried. I tried not to totally cry in front of the girls, but I was obviously in a bad way. I had to compose myself before I could respond to a question or say anything at all. I got them to Susan's (with Tiny in Wren's slippers because she ALWAYS loses her shoes). I didn't cry while I went to Target and Costco and put away everything at home. But then I had to pick up the girls, and as soon as we left Susan's, I lost it again. Could not stop crying. Again, Ever was acting totally normal, and I was bitter that the girls must have seen that I was distraught and yet didn't seem to care. I said nothing unless I had to answer a question. When we parked in the garage, I said, "Any schoolwork that didn't get done today will have to be done tomorrow. Don't go outside without sunscreen and hats." I went inside, up to my bedroom, and locked the door. Then I pretty much didn't stop crying for two hours. The crying is not steady now, but tears are still at the ready.
Since the girls have been playing with Nathan every afternoon after he gets home from school, I texted Rebecca a heads-up that went something like this: "I've lost it. I'm super emotional and am done parenting. I'm planning to stay in my locked room for three hours until I have to take the girls to Susan's for dinner and a movie. I don't want to pawn them off on you. They can fend for themselves." The girls quickly went outside and found Cikaneks. Tiny came in asking if they could swim. I said I didn't think so today. (Swimming would mean I would have to deal with them when they got out of the pool, and I'm trying not to have anything to do with them until as close to our departure time as possible.) Ever came in and asked, from outside my door, Why couldn't they swim, and why was it a bad day? (Possibly Rebecca had told her about our text exchange?) I kept crying when I tried to answer and had to stop and restart. Finally, through tears, I said I needed to be alone. Wrenzy came in later asking if they could swim because it was the first day (of the season) in the big pool (as opposed to the hot tub). I just took to not answering at all. She asked a few times, with a minute or so between each inquiry. She also asked why I was crying all day. I never answered. I just stayed in my room and cried and hid out like a completely crazy person. Now it's 5 P.M., and I'm still hiding out and crying. While in here, I heard Ever do something intentionally to Wren that made Wren cry and yell, "I hate you." So that was awful. But I didn't go out and deal with it.
Ever made homemade butter while I was hiding. She just brought a piece of buttered bread up and asked me to open the door because she had something for me. She can be so sweet and so independent sometimes. I have to leave my room now to prepare a salad to take to Susan's. I'm embarrassed to see people after crying all day. I don't know how I'll recover from this breakdown. I don't know how to be patient and gentle and effective. I don't know how to parent. But maybe tomorrow I'll be able to see and speak to my kids without crying?
P.S. Someday I'll go back to July and catch up. But I'm going to go ahead and post this in real time. For posterity. Sometimes parenting is the absolute worst.
