Crap Mama Week

I guess everyone goes through days or weeks or stages where they are an awful parent. I am having one of those stages right now. Not all the time, but enough that I am feeling like the worst Mum in the world.

I cleared the train table off this week, and got out a bunch of puzzles and flash cards and put them all out on the table, invitation-like. You know, like all those awesome websites and montessori classes and so on do - invite your child to engage in a new activity.

Well mine did - by tipping everything out into a big pile. Repeatedly. Which I should have seen coming I guess. I'm not sure why I thought Atti would stand passively by my side while I showed him how to play the games or do the puzzles. Or why I thought the Wook would actually stop him from destroying it all. 

I also realised that we only had two kinds of puzzles - too hard or too easy. So quick trip to a local second hand shop found us with some new puzzles, which are in the right difficulty range. 

I couldn't convince Atti to go back to sleep or come and snuggle this morning, so I probably wasn't starting out in the right mood to do puzzles with him, but he was so keen so I gave it a go. And it wasn't a total disaster, but it wasn't great either. He won't let me show him how to do things, he wants everything out at once, he won't take turns ..... yeah I know, he is 2. But it is so frustrating and I am struggling to keep a peaceful happy face on it all.

Then there was a toilet-ing accident, and I really wasn't in the mood for it (and all things considered it actually was pretty minor - it's just that he has been doing so well I guess I kind of thought we wouldn't have this kind of problem again.

You know things are going badly when your two year old son is asking 'you happy Mama' and doing things to make you happy. He was packing up a box of toys he had emptied out and after each few things he put back he was saying 'you more happy now Mama'. Yikes.

It's all around a bit of a dark time. It is the last month of semester and I am soooo behind - and I keep planning for time to study and it keeps coming apart. Atti won't do stuff with his Dad or I get pissed off at the way he is handling him and just take him out, and this weekend the Wook has manflu and that has blown out my half days. And given that I can still hear them in the loungeroom, I guess they aren't going to swimming lessons this morning, so I won't have this morning to myself to do housework. And I am not getting enough sleep and generally am feeling pretty dark. 

Which is clearly coming out in my parenting. And that is not cool.

So. What to do. Well I guess the only thing is to "man up". Stupid expression given that what I am about to describe is mostly done by women. I think it is just time to accept that I am going to have to do everything myself. What free time I get to myself is going to have to be sacrificed for a while - Atti and the Wook are getting along so badly that it is no longer realistic to plan on Dad being in charge for half days. So I am going to be a bit more full-time than normal. And I am going to have to work out how to make that work. To be at peace with it and not get so frustrated. And I need to pack stuff I don't want Atti into away - it is the only way as he is into EVERYTHING right now.

This would be when I just have to suck it up.

Depressing as this entry is, I've added some photos to cheer myself up

Development

It is so amazing to watch a child develop, and see how their thinking is coming along. Tonight Atti and I were playing a kind of chasey game, and I was hiding up the hallway. Usually he can't keep his distance very long and he comes looking for me, but tonight, he stopped at the base of the hallway and started calling out 'Mum, help. Help me Mummy'.

Then it was 'the big bad mouse is after me' (we have been reading Gruffalo's child lately).

I stood up the hallway laughing at how clever it was. Luring me out like that. Awesome.

I kind of hate Mother's Day

Until I was a mother, it wasn't a big deal. My Mum was usefully born in the first week of May (and my Dad's birthday is pretty close to Australian Father's Day too, actually) so it just got rolled together - all I ever had to do was buy an extra card*. So Mother's Day wasn't much a deal. But then again, I have a reasonably low-key family about this kinda stuff.

The Wookie and I got together and Mother's Day became a bigger deal in my life then. The MiL expects a certain degree of celebration - they are the 'eat at an exxy restaurant for things' kind of people. So suddenly Mother's Day, Father's Day, Birthdays were much more expensive. A gift and paying for 3-4 people to eat out. Plus, as I am a planning-y kind of person, the planning started to fall to me. 

I pretty quickly chucked being involved in getting their presents. It soon didn't work out. One year for Father's Day I sourced a whole bunch of stuff to go with the FiL's new big flashy telescope. Star charts for the year and location, astronomy stuff for the year - only to discover it never pointed up to the sky, but down the hill! So that was a bust. And given that the MiL and I are so different, I gave that up. I am in charge of their xmas gifts (and choosing and booking the restaurant for MD - at least I was) and that is it.

But then I became a Mother, and honestly, can we just let it pass for a few years? Atti isn't old enough to do anything - and daycare sorts out a small and usually nice gift for the kids. This year it is a big glass jar that has flour, sugar and cocoa in it, with directions to add eggs and milk and mix, then bake - brownies! That is a good present. But Atti can't even manage not to wake up at 5.30am on MD, so lets just skip it til he can help his Daddy make a breakfast or choose a gift himself. Until then, Daddy is in charge, and Daddy is somewhat clue-less.

Which means it all ends up landing on me. And like countless other Mothers have said 'I don't want to plan Mother's Day FFS'. 

Now I am going to bitch about my partner, which I am well aware is utterly naff. But still....

Yesterday, after picking a friend up from a surgical procedure, I had to stop off while dropping her home to collect my own gift. All I wanted was a tin of my favorite tea. It is like $15 and is on the way to/from the Wookie's work. So he has driven within 500 meters of the place literally 10 times this week. But I had to go on a busy saturday to get it myself. And then he didn't give it to Atti to give me this morning anyway.

Atti woke at 5.30 this morning and I (stupidly) woke the Wook saying 'surely this morning I don't have to go get him? Assuming he would just grab him and bring him back to bed. But they got up. So I still didn't get any sleep (fighting and playing loud-music-playing-toys) and I got to lie in bed and consider how all the early mornings this coming week are now going to go. sigh.

And at 7 in comes Atti and Wook with a card (no food or tea) and I basically got both stomped on and groped. Awesome. Oh please, can we do this multiple times a year?

Blergh. Count me out.

Oh, and I still won't get any peace today. At 9 I am making a card with Rio for her mum and grandmother and the outlaws are coming here apparently (and claiming we will then go 'find' somewhere to eat - ah, not likely on MD). I am planning on suggesting we go to the beach and pick up fish and chips on the way. At least I could get my photography assignment for the week sorted.

And yeah I know - I'm a bitch. Whinging bitch. Lovely partner, son and in-laws. All who want to give me a good morning but are just going awry. And whingey me. But still, aiiiiyiiiiyiii. It can't be this hard can it?

*I feel very sorry for people born at xmas if they have a family like mine!

Morning dance party

Twice a week we Skype with friends who live on the other side of the country. Atti and I met this couple and their daughter the first day of mother's group. Their daughter Lee is two days older than Atti and our kids have always looked so much alike that they were often taken for twins when they lived here. Actually, Lee's mum and I were assumed to be a lesbian couple with twins a few times (admittedly this my perception, not something I know for sure).

They moved back east when Lee was about 18 months old, and I have always been a little sad about it. But we started skyping once or twice a week first thing in the morning (for me anyway) as soon as they moved and it has worked pretty well. I guess we will see for sure if I manage to get over to see them early next year.

But my friendship with Lee's mum has maintained and Atti and Lee take great delight in 'chatting' to each other over Skype. Showing each other their toys, telling each other what to do (take your dummy out Atti. Don't stand on the chair Lee), and this morning, having a dance party. Atti has found this baby toy of his, a car that plays music, and he is playing it and dancing to it a lot lately. And this morning he started doing it, and Lee went along. It was hilarious, and so adorable.

I miss them. 

Mind you, the dance party only happened in the second half of the call. In the first half, Atti was on and off the potty, pants free, picking his potty up to show Lee and generally making it a bit ridiculous for us all. Really hope we don't have a lot of calls where I spend most of my time angling the computer screen so that his willy doesn't end up in the call!

Toilet training

So Friday afternoon daycare sent home a toilet training book. Hmmmm, subtle much? Apparently Atti has stopped using the toilet there. When they do nappy changes they offer to let him sit on the toilet and he says 'no thank you'.

To which, my awesome neighbour/sister-wife, when told this on collect him Fridays said 'yeah, that's free will'.

She also dobbed me in about the smarties and bribery-cum-toilet-training we have been doing here. So today I had to take some smarties to daycare, and had a chat to Atti about how he needs to do wees in the toilet at daycare too now.

So, we shall see. Our very half-arsed training technique is coming along nicely here - most morning or nights we get a pretty quick wee in the potty, and then he gets into the bath or shower. This morning he re-discovered the set of cars his Nanna gave him when he was about 8 months old, and he sat on the potty for ages driving them around the bathroom stool. Which was fine by me, gives me time to shower in relative peace.

I do need to find some time to go buy underpants though - the book daycare sent us is all about big boys who wear underpants and use the toilet - and are you a big boy too - it is very popular here, and he wants us to read it to him over and over. I figure I probably need to get some underpants for him to have to figure out if he wants to use them.

But here is the thing - we live in a flat. A carpeted flat. Carpet everywhere but the kitchen and bathroom. I am NOT madly keen on accidents all over my carpets, because I seriously don't have the time to be washing carpets. So I am hesitant to go with this underpants thing.

I wonder if daycare would like underpants for the days he is up there.... LOL. I really should ask.....