Moms ranting again

Where to begin? Pete and I miss our lives before kids. We love our lives now. But we miss our 'life'. Our life now consists of - well...babies and being parents. That's a whole lot of responsibilty. Neither one of us could have imagined the amount of responsibility one takes on when being a parent. There's ups and downs and with each other - we'll pull through it. But some days are so much harder than others.

The girls have learned that they now have 'choices'. It makes it hard on us because they only choose 'no'. That's it. Whatever it is...they don't want it or they don't want to do it. And they fight every step of the way. Changing them is a nightmare. Getting them in their pj's at night...same nightmare. But for some reason - they love to get dressed in the morning. I don't get it. I know it's just a phase...but Lord this phase is killing me. The whining. OMG the whining. I don't do whining...really really really don't do whining. It eats at me - sends my blood pressure through the roof and just makes my hair stand up. I feel like I'm constantly saying 'use your words please' over and over again. And you know...they don't really have words! But I sure wish they'd find them and use them. It's the guessing game right now. "You want this? No. You want that? No. This? That? Oh! You want this!!!!!!" Grrrrrr.

Sleeping in is a thing of the past. Even if one of us is able to stay in bed - we can't really sleep. Nights out - forget it. We're either home with the girls or too tired to go anywhere anyway.

This isn't a complaint - just part of our life. We both just sat here and read through some of the older posts in the blog and I was thinking...'wow - there's nothing in there about how HARD it is sometimes'. It's no wonder people don't get it. We don't tell them. Of course you don't want people to know you're having a bad day. Those are the things people want to hear about. They want to know that our girls are sleeping through the night and eating well. That they're happy and healthy. Yes, yes, yes and yes to all 4 of those things. But you know - they cry. They whine. They fight. They slap the shit out of me everyday and I do nothing at all about it. Not even time outs. Because I choose not to fight that battle. They hardly ever lay down on the chaning table to be changed without being forced or held down. It usually takes 2 of us to get Emily in her pj's at night.

Today was a good day. You'd never know it by this blog. But it was a good day. The girls got along, Emily didn't bite anyone (that's not to say she didn't try), we got some laundry done, went grocery shopping, cooked a few meals, even sat and played with playdough, went for a long walk....it was a really good day.

But a good day can turn sour in 2 seconds and when you have 3 screaming toddlers - that's all it takes to make you forget you've had a good day. After their bath we had to cut their nails. All 60 of them. 30 toes, 30 fingers. It takes 2 of us and we could probably use a third. They didn't fight too hard tonight but they resisted. Then it was time for pj's. Emily just wasn't having it. She did everything in her power to keep from getting dressed. She twists, turns, screams, bites, hits, and even lets her whole body go limp. This really just gets to me. THEY'RE PJ'S. WE DO THIS EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. And yet she acts like we're tourturing her. Grrrrr

I finally took her bunny away and gave the other 2 theirs. They were in the pj's. I told Emily if she wanted her bunny - put her pj's on and she'd get it. She did...with a lot less resistance. And I gave her the bunny.