I am trying to be better about blogging. What else is new? I'm always trying to be better about blogging. The thing is, I have 2 kids. One is 8 months old and one is almost 2 and a half. So I'm a busy lady. I spend the whole day trying to entertain them and keep them from crying, trying to make them eat vegetables and share their toys... and I always fail. Failing all the time. By the time I actually have time to sit and write something, I'm usually absolutely exhausted and I just want to sit on my ass, drink some wine and watch some awful reality television until I go to bed at like 8. I need 11 hours of sleep to feel half decent the next day. This is probably due to the stress of trying to be the world's best mother. Or, more realistically, Hamilton's best mother, which last I heard, I was in the running for.
I feel so guilty when my kids are being quiet and watching TV. In the morning for an hour or so is fine, but when it's a beautiful day and Carter is watching a movie contentedly, I am consumed by guilt. Look at me, sitting on my ass, letting my kid's brain turn to mush. What is wrong with me? He should know how to count to 100 by now. I should start teaching him that right now. Nah. Don't feel like it. Maybe I should try out one of those highfalutin activities for children that I saw on Pinterest.... Ugh, fuck it, he's happy doing this. I can be a bad mother today.
And so it goes.
But I do spend a lot of time being one-on-one with the kids. I am always trying to come up with fun and interesting ways to keep them busy. So this is what takes up the majority of my time, and wears me down to a nub by the time Mike gets home from work. Parenting does not come effortlessly to me. It takes everything I have, often in expense of my beloved hobbies. I haven't painted in God knows how long. It takes me weeks to read a book where it used to only take a day or two at most. And people are always asking when I am going to blog, and the truth is that sometimes I just have nothing left to give, even though my heart is yearning to write. I will have the time again someday.
Even though I am always questioning whether or not I am doing any of this properly, I have come to learn that the most important aspect of parenting is just quality time. What's the harm in watching a little bit of TV if that's what the kids feel like doing? As long as we're doing it together, that's what really counts. It isn't necessarily what you're doing, but how you're doing it. We don't watch TV quietly. We discuss things (as much as we can, seeing as Carter is a late-talker - another thing I torture myself about relentlessly). We talk about colours, numbers, what's going on, our favourite things, et cetera. And we very rarely spend the entire day in the house. We go out and about all the time. It completey drains me. Carter needs to be kept busy, and he needs to explore his world every day. So we chase the squirrels together, we play in water sprinklers, we take long walks, we play with friends, pick flowers, run errands, spend money. We do it every day, and we do it together. So maybe I'm not a terrible mother after all. Maybe I can relax a little.
We have a problem with mice. Mike and I were talking about it when Carter was in the room, and we thought (out loud, big mistake) that maybe it's time to get a cat. WELL. Carter just said KITTY all day long, over and over and over again. So last night we drove out to Ancaster and we got Carter a cat. We named him Milo. I probably would have been fine with just setting more traps and putting out more poison, but Carter was so giddy over the idea of getting a cat that you know I just had to get the boy a cat. Milo is 10 weeks old and I'm not sure how he's adjusting just yet. He hides in the kitchen a lot. Whenever he ventures out to the livingroom, Carter will pick him up and place him in strange places all over the house. Like inside the filing cabinet. Or in the high chair. Or he'll carry him around in a laundry basket, a big shit-eating grin on his face. It has been decided that even if Milo doesn't kill all of the mice, even if he doesn't kill a single one, seeing the glee all over Carter's face when Milo is nearby is worth it to me. And I hate cats. HA.
