maybe the hardest part of being a parent is that you have to act like a grown-up all the time.
you would otherwise whine and throw things and throw your head back and howl and curl up in a booze ball, but you have to be brave, and keep trying to be polite and reasonable and a good example even in the roughest of moments and…..it’s hard.
i feel most especially tested in my grown-up abilities when my kids are sick. they’ve been sick-esque for weeks and it’s EXHAUSTING and frightening and frustrating and painful. the sound of tiny bodies hacking and coughing does something physical to us and it’s awful. i just want to cry with them and be held by a big person my ownself.
we have family going through a health crisis with their little wee one right now and i just KNOW that these grown people, these parents, have fantasies of throwing themselves on the ground and crying until someone swoops them up and offers them ice cream. you DO talk to all the specialists about how they plan to poke and prod at your poor kid in the name of making him well. you DO listen and nod your head and ask the right questions. but you KIND of REALLY want to spit your chocolate milk in their faces because they are mean and stupid and you want them to go away. you want the whole thing to go away.
but you don’t, because you’re a parent and a grown-up and you’re drinking coffee, not chocolate milk, and spitting hot coffee on someone might be a criminal offense and…#lame.
so, i was at one of the hippie grocery stores today that i frequent. i was feeling frisky, so i took both kids with me, after i picked them up from daycare after work. they were great, but they’re both loud and full of needs, and are both just getting through their ailments, so between my cart holding the food and the anna and henry’s little kid cart that he was manning himself (knocking into strangers, stopping to examine all the candy), we were sailing down the aisles like this big, loud, consumption float.
so i’m feeling pretty accomplished until the cashier heckles me about not bringing my own reusable bags.