When Parenting Gets Hard, Parent Harder

How I deal with four kids when I'm feeling frustrated and annoyed

Being a parent is hard. Straight up, that shit is haaaaard. You try to discipline with consistency, teach without yelling, love without smothering, play, feed, water, nap, change, dress, brush and keep them alive until you do it all again the next day. That’s just one kid. Try four. Four different persons under the same roof; each with a vastly different personality who requires different things from mom throughout the day. The baby is easy: eat, play, nap and love. She’s on a routine that works like a charm. The three-year-old is insanity in a skin suit. She needs to be watched. She needs to be told to do her chores 54 times before she’ll do it. All she wants to do is play, play, play. Oh, and eat snacks. Never meals, just snacks. The four-year-old is the only boy and he’s rough. He needs my other eye watching him. He’s sneaky and always needs his own way. So he bullies his little sisters around- think pushing, hitting and just since last night, biting. He’s a bugger but he’s also super sweet and giving with his love. He always wants to snuggle…with anyone: me, his dad, his sisters, our neighbours, anyone who will love him, he will take all their love and hand it back two fold. My oldest is the hardest these days. A nine-year-old girl going on 17; full of sass, crass and attitude. She’s a huge help with the younger kids but I try my best to be mindful of how often I lean on her. She’s their sister, not their mom or babysitter. She’s what I like to call, “away with the fairies” as my Irish friend James says. She’s in her own head, daydreaming, drawing, planning. She loves being on her own and doing her own thing which is great unless you have three siblings trying to break down the door to see what you’re doing. She’s short tempered and annoyed with them most days. I don’t really blame her though; I’m usually short tempered and annoyed with them too!

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

So as you can imagine by now, my house is pure insanity. Today was a hard day. The two middle snuck a bag of frozen berries into the basement (where they know they’re not allowed to eat) and smushed thawed, wet berries into our light grey carpet. Cool. Then while I was cleaning that up, they ran upstairs to my bedroom to destroy a shelf of my most sacred items. My altar is so important to me. It has crystals, glass candle holders, my delicate glass elephants from a friend, pictures and more. It was gone; everything was completely strewn about my room. How did this happen in five minutes time? Where are those eyes in the back of mom’s heads? I need a pair please! Then somehow the boy and the three-year-old ended up naked in the crib waking up the baby from her nap. What is even happening? I begged them to get dressed while my son was reaching around from behind trying to grab his dick and pull it back to his ass. WHYYYYYY? My girl put a sweater on and I threw in the towel. Be naked, I don’t care. Oh wait, I do care because she refuses to let me help her wipe her ass so there’s likely poop on her at any given moment. I go get her panties. That’ll do. In the words of my husband, she’s too damn stubborn for her brain development.

I'm getting tired and I’m annoyed and I’m pretty angry. I’ve done a lot of yelling today. I’m trying not to watch the clock to see when my husband will be home. I don’t want to just throw kids at him when he’s also had a long (albeit different long) day so I take five minutes of solitude and after four minutes I think, “I gotta change the energy in here.”

When things get hard with the kids, go back to the simple stuff: Laughter, play and fun.

Not one part of me wanted to be around my kids this afternoon but you know what? I knew I had to change my attitude in order for them to change theirs. Remember my post about moms being the mood setter? (Check it here) I decided I needed to parent more, parent harder. I put my phone away after throwing on a 00’s hip hop hits (like duh, of course!) and we had a dance party. We made up dance moves like the army worm crawl, the stiff legged tongue wiggle and the spastic shakes. We laughed. We went into the bathroom with the speaker and continued the dance party in the dark with a glow-in-the-dark dinosaur as our club vibe and danced away! Afterwards, they helped me get dinner ready. I listened to them say hilarious kid things. My oldest left for a sleepover. The baby watched from her chair while squeezing her baby food pouch all down her front. At least it’s organic! I was reminded that although my kids annoy me, they aren’t annoyances. They’re kids. And when they act out, they’re needing something and that something is usually from me. So I gave them me. I left the laundry in the dryer, dinner became an easy, quick one skillet meal and This Little Piggy became the dinner hour entertainment for the baby as all of us took turns tickling her.

When shit gets hard, which is all the goddamn time, stop, breathe and pivot. Parent more. Be more present. Be more silly. Be more loving. Be more even if it’s only for twenty minutes. They’ll hopefully remember that dance party more than me losing my mind over the 9th bout of insanity earlier. One day, when they have kids of their own, they’ll understand.