Two Cents Tuesday: Sane Parenting?

You can do that? You can't imagine my amazement yesterday when I went to see TuTu and grab the topic for Two Cents Tuesday. "Maintaining sanity while parenting." I am chomping at the bit to hit up her linky and educate myself. There is so much to learn!

But here's my two cents on sane parenting. It can't be done. If you make the choice to become a parent (or in my case if your BC decides to flame out in all its glory - 3 times!), you really have to check your sanity at the L&D door.

A. You will make ridiculous faces that no one in their right mind would ever make.

And some of them will be for cute reasons like making the baby smile and laugh for a million adorable pictures. But I found that most of my ridiculous faces were unintentional and for completely uncute reasons. For example the "Not Enough Hands Face" most often expressed while you are juggling diaper bag, toddler's hand, juice boxes, and stroller while "Mr. I have no Children" lets the mall door slam in your face. Ooo! Or how about "Did I Feed you THAT?! Face" You know the one. The one that contorts your face while you simultaneously try not to toss you lunch as you attempt to clean THAT up.

B. You will ask the same person to do the same thing at least 7 times in a half hour period.

I've read that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result. That is exactly what happens when you ask a child to clean up anything. My playroom is a prime example. I can pile the toys up and ask, beg, plead, cry, wail, scream, threaten, bribe and cajole for as long as I have breath. The children simply will not pick them up. They can't fight gravity it seems. Gravity is what pulled everything off the shelves in the first place so there is no way they are going to be able to put it all back up.

C. You will set out to do one simple task and will end up doing everything but that task.

See, I just went upstairs with the intention of cleaning the bathrooms. But I went into the bathroom and remembered that the rugs were in the dryer so I went to the dryer to get them out and ended up emptying the dryer which led to moving the laundry from the washer. That of course led me to check all the laundry baskets for straggler laundry from the weekend. As long as I was in the room why not make the bed? This caused me to gather up an armful of toys who managed to escape gravity's choke hold and migrate all the way upstairs. I brought them back here to the pile in the playroom and thought I would check my e-mail as long as I was here. The bathrooms still haven't been cleaned. Everyone thinks those "If you Give a Mouse a..." books are so cute. They are until you live them. Every day. For a yet undisclosed number of years.

It is my personal opinion, if you attempt to retain all sanity and still be a parent you will miss out on the best part of the adventure. Sure I have a few bald patches here and there but the doctor tells me as soon as they start to fill in again I can take the huggy jacket off.