How Low Can You Go?

It's never a good sign when your daughter is already crying before she sets foot in your room at 6:25 a.m. Ella had clearly gotten up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Which reminds me, I'd like to meet the person who coined the phrase, "the wrong side of the bed." I'd like to point out to them that in our house, there isn't such a thing as the "right" side of the bed anymore. There hasn't been one in almost two years, and probably won't be one for another fifteen more. So there.



And thus began our Wednesday.



Trying to be the optimist, I thought, "well, maybe it can only improve from here."



It didn't.



It still hasn't.



But at least now there's silence. It's almost deafening. Nap-time was once again preceded by a tantrum that would make even a New Jersey housewife jealous. I shut the door to her room, locked it, and walked away, bracing myself to go for the long haul with this one. I figured I might need some help steeling my nerves so I sat on the couch and mindlessly shoved several thin mints into my mouth. (Ah, comfort food). Upstairs, I heard Ella's room being ripped to shreds. All of the Melissa & Doug food being hurled at her door. Books being torn from bookshelves. Brobee's muffled voice singing about a party in his tummy, so yummy, so yummy yu-- a thud, and then silence. (Poor Brobee). In this relentless battle of wills that is the two's (and so I hear- the three's and fours....), I may have momentarily won the battle, but the paranoid and insecure side of me often wonders if I'm just one step closer to losing the war. I wonder if she knows how defeated I feel. I wonder if she knows that, with every instance of me losing my temper or placing her in her room to "cool off," I worry that I'm inadvertently chipping away at her beautiful, fiery spirit that on most other days, I envy for myself. Oh, I complain about changing diapers, wiping noses, and picking up dried, crusted strawberries off of the floor every day, but I'm actually quite good at those things. I could do that until the cows come home. But this whole thing of taking it upon myself to raise another human being to be a kind, compassionate, loving, and disciplined individual? Some days, I don't know how that's going to turn out. (Meanwhile, I'm sure it's written in the "How to Be a Successful Mommy" manual that they gave me when I left the hospital with her, but oddly, I haven't been able to find it since we got home...)



I was reminded of the study that was published a few years ago which found that the happiest place in the world is, quite surprisingly, Denmark. (I know, I know- I still can't believe Disneyworld didn't make the cut...) The Danish people, sandwiched in between their seemingly better-looking neighbors- Sweden and Norway, with their mediocre weather, and self-proclaimed heavy smoking/drinking habits have consistently made it to the top of the happy list because they seem to excel in something that we American's have always struggled with: setting the bar low and keeping it there. It's also entirely possible that most people there truly don't give a rip about what others think. It would make sense that if you aren't expecting too much (either from yourself or from anyone else) then who cares if others are impressed or not?



If you stop and think about it, it's actually quite brilliant.



So today, I don't care that my daughter has not had any clothes on since 7:30 a.m. I'm picking my battles carefully these days, and that's not one I care to fight. She has also eaten her weight in Craisins today, and if you're good at math, you'll figure out, that's a hell of a lot of Craisins. She'll probably be pooping Craisins until her 3rd birthday, but again, not my battle. There are worse things she could want to eat.



I may have started today (and many others) with an expectation bar that was several notches higher than what it should have been. And the reasons why it was set high to begin with are actually quite irrelevant at this point. Bottom line: some days, it's enough to make sure your kids are fed and aren't sitting in their own crap. Nothing more. You may not be able to get a shower or get makeup on. This is why God created baseball caps and deoderant. You may not even get them dressed. Bonus points if you do. Triple bonus points if the outfit actually matches. Also, don't expect them to act like normal, civilized human beings. They're irrational, narcissistic, and bi-polar- at best. Of course, I'm not advocating that we should all wake up each morning with a giant chip on our shoulder, but perhaps, if we decide that, as parents, anything above and beyond the mere basics is just icing on the cake, we'll find ourselves more pleasantly surprised instead of just plain exhausted.


Maybe. One can hope, right? So, how low can you go...?