December 2008

“Having Children Is Like Being Pecked to Death by Chickens”

I celebrated Mother’s Day recently. My husband asked me what I wanted to do. My thoughts were racing and none of them involved being with my kids. Is that bad? That’s normal, right? I know there are a lot of you out there with the same thoughts but you are afraid to admit it. Well, my alone time didn’t happen. I ended up spending the day with my husband and my two children which turned out to be a very nice.

I received some nice gifts. What does it mean when your five year old son gives you a plaque for Mother’s Day that reads “My mom loves giving away homemade gifts which one of my children would you like?” Have I scarred him already? Could it be the fact that I sometimes threaten to give him back to the “savages” where I found him? Honestly, I am trying to build strong character. That is good parenting, right?

My mom used to lock us out of the house and just before she slammed the door closed she would yell, “If you get thirsty, get a drink from the garden hose.” At the time, I thought that was child abuse bad parenting. Now at thirty-something years old and two “savages” later, I think it was BRILLIANT! My mom got her much needed alone time while we sat outside in one hundred and four degree weather taking turns getting water from the garden hose waiting for her to unlock the door. She was building strong character, right?

It is difficult to have friends that are just now having babies a little later in life. My 35 year old girlfriend just had her first baby. She wants to tell me every detail! I want to scream at the top of my lungs “I DON’T CARE!” I don’t care about your lactation specialist. I don’t care about the size of your nipples. I don’t care what color its poop is, how much it is eating and when, how cute they are, etc. I am done with that and quite truthfully, I really didn’t think my own kids were that cute. How do you say that to a friend? At this point, I have chosen to avoid her calls.

What I would like to say to her is, “Just wait, they ain’t going to stay so cute. Soon they will drive you crazy, get on your last nerve, make you want to lock yourself in the bathroom, drink until you pass out, runaway from home and make you cry like a baby. But then again, they will make you laugh hysterically, tell you you’re beautiful when you feel fat and ugly, and tell you that you are the best mom in the whole world.”

All in all, the whole being a mother thing feels a lot like being pecked to death by chickens!