There are tons of perfect parents out there. In fact, I would be willing to guess we all know at least one, if not several. Straight up perfect parents. They are all the people...without kids.
True, right? The lady in the cracker aisle at the grocery store eyeballing your writhing cart of toddler and goldfish? Perfect parent. The man sighing heavily behind you in line at McDonald's while you try and organize all your moving pieces? Perfect parent. I know it. And I was no better. Before I had kids, I too was a perfect parent. I knew exactly how to fix all problems and when I did have kids I would never...
Let them play with my phone. There are a thousand toys for kids to play with, including ones that look exactly like my phone. Why would I let them have the one toy of mine that I play with, ummm...use for productive purposes...all day long? Because no matter how many toys or fake phones or dancing clowns that make blow up balloon phones you have in a room...your child will know they are all peanuts compared to that ONE thing you tell them they can't have. And they won't forget you have it, and will beg for it, until your ears bleed. You don't want bleeding ears around living room furniture. And you want to hear what that green fuzzy stuff is on Top Chef. And you just want this screaming, whirling dervish that you created to be still for five precious moments. This is how toddlers learn to play Angry Birds. My one year old is an expert candy crusher. I am not ashamed. Ok, maybe a little ashamed...
Let them sleep in my bed. Ok, sure, from time to time on a rough night but this is no community bed here, got it? This is a mommy and daddy bed, where we go to try and find a little quiet and where we get to look at each other without any toddlers pulling at our body parts thinking candy will fall out. That worked until I got pregnant and Baby Boy started sleeping so awful and I couldn't lift him anymore and Jack slept like the dead and I had all this guilt over replacing my baby with this new one and I said...screw it. What is it going to hurt. Now Baby Girl is two months old and Baby Boy is stuck like a burr in my sheets. In my sheets that he twists up and pees on and lives in between me and Daddy on. It hurt. It still hurts.
Dress like a mom that has given up. I would not be caught dead in public in shirts with baby stains or sweatpants or my hair not brushed and straightened. How hard is it to pull yourself together? Jeans match everything, grab a nice shirt and some cute shoes and have a little respect ladies! Ha. What I didn't know is jeans are the devil once you give birth. No matter what kind of fit you get, it does not seem to work. True high waisted jeans make you look like you just immediately got knocked up again. My trusty midsize favorites all fell right across the middle of my new baby pooch section, pulling it into two pooch sections like a muffin top meeting a muffin bottom. Not only does this look as unappealing as it sounds, it is also very uncomfortable. I have little kid fingers poking me in the eyes a hundred times thanks to some stupid "learning" book (Mama, EYES!) - I do not need to make myself more uncomfortable. So it seems like the only answer is lowrise jeans. Except then the pooch all hugs together and flops over the waistband. No muffin top here, more like a wad of uncooked pizza dough is falling out of your pants. No matter how hard you try and stuff it back in, another piece oozes out. And try bending down to do one of a hundred things you do at little kid level...while trying to keep your shirt down in back so you don't imitate a plumber. Impossible. A curious child is going to shove Froot Loop down there. Kids do the darndest things. And any top you put on is immediately a magnet for all kinds of baby bodily fluids and toddler messes. Yeah, my "clothes" and my "pajamas" are now eerily similar. Jack is afraid to ask if I am actually dressed or not sometimes. Scrub pants, yoga pants, pajama pants, sometimes no pants...plus whatever shirt is clean that has the least breastmilk stains at the moment...and I am ready to greet the day.
Let them eat junk food. Why would I? It is so easy to have little servings of healthy snacks. How will they know about junk if I don't give it to them? Well, it is kind of like the phone situation. You can put a thousand healthy snacks in front of them and you would swear they won't eat a thing...and then they gobble up five Twinkies they stole from a box on a low shelf in the pantry. They know. I don't know how, but something instinctively tells them they want the one thing vibrating with force of all its sugar. And you say you won't give in but then they go on hunger strikes and refuse to eat and try and subside on milk bottles alone...and you give into their demands because all that mommy guilt eats away your rational brain cells. Then those ones are replaced with sneaky mom brain cells and you discover veggie straws and fruit snacks and goldfish. All of which still lure your little sugar seeking missile while still having at least some nutrional value when compared to Twinkies and Doritos. I am told eventually they will eat real food again, but for now I am happy with any bite that is not coming from the one last bottle Baby Boy is clinging to for dear life.
So maybe that is the lesson here...pick your battles. Compromise. Bend. And don't be so hard on them and yourself. What these perfect parents don't yet know is the sheer volume of daily battles that kids provide. You can't win them all. And stay sane. And see who wins Top Chef. Sacrifices must be made.
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