Some days I feel like I am just failing as a parent.
I completely forgot a dental appointment for Jonny this morning. They even texted me yesterday to remind me. I remembered just as it was supposed to start… Jonny was still asleep. I had to call to reschedule.
Simultaneous situation: I wanted Jonah to eat something for breakfast before he drank any milk. I’m trying to wean him off his “all milk” diet. The kid drank half a gallon in an hour last night. Aside from it being an unhealthy amount of milk to drink, he is also not eating solid food and instead just drinking more milk. I need to get him eating healthy food.
But instead, he dragged the milk out of the fridge himself and unscrewed the top. He was basically going to try to pour it out himself if I wasn’t going to help him. So instead of putting the lid back on and putting the milk away and reinforce drinking water and eating something for breakfast, I just let him have more milk to avoid a tantrum or meltdown.
I finally got him into his seat to eat breakfast. He ate a quarter of a cinnamon roll before asking to be “all done.”
When I let him out of his seat, he immediately ran to the back door, unlocked it, and ran outside barefoot in his jammies, letting the indoor cat outside and getting into dirt in the back yard.
I yelled at him to get inside, but he immediately turned to run, but tripped and fell on the patio. He skinned his elbow. Blood was dripping down his arm. He cried briefly, but I took the opportunity to pick him up and bring him inside without him protesting.
I changed him and got him dressed, complete with shoes and everything.
I washed his elbow and attempted to put a bandaid on the bloodied scrape. He pulled the band aid off and hit me, but then wanted me to pick him up. I obliged, but he started crying again. He assumed we were going to leave somewhere since I had just put his shoes on. I really just wanted to get him dressed and wear shoes for playing outside. He wanted me to hold him and take him to the car.
Meanwhile my cat has jumped the fence in the backyard going into the neighbor’s yard directly behind our house. I’ve met this neighbor once in the last 10 years and I wasn’t willing to jump the fence to chase him (my cat, not my neighbor).
Jonah was still crying and wanting me to hold him and definitely did NOT want me going in the back yard with him.
But I had to get the darn cat back in the house. Our previous indoor cat escaped one evening and was killed by raccoons that night in our back yard. Jonny personally picked out our current cat and he is basically Jonah’s “therapy” cat. Jonah and the cat both think alike. They both try to elope whenever they can. Jonah will let the cat out ALL THE TIME and laugh as he does it.
So just letting the cat be outside and “hoping the cat comes back” really isn’t an option for us. It’s too great a risk. I didn’t want to jump the fence… or go meet the neighbors. It was still fairly early in the morning and I hadn’t had my coffee. I couldn’t do anything holding Jonah anyways the way he was.
Jonny asked where our cat was and I told him I didn’t know. He was outside somewhere. Oh. I forgot to mention that my sister came over to work with Jonny on his schoolwork. But there wasn’t any schoolwork being done.
There was worrying being done. “Where was Russell (our cat)? I hope he doesn’t get hit by a car. I hope raccoons don’t eat him. Where did he go?”
Jonah wanted to go “bye bye.” Jonny had to find the cat. My sister said she would help.
So we went to go find the cat.
I was finally able to put Jonah down in the garage and he busied himself by walking back into the kitchen and taking his plate of uneaten food outside with him. I have no idea where the plates went. (I said “plates” because he has also done this before, and I haven’t stopped him. Yes. I am aware. I am reinforcing a bad habit.). Like I said. I want the kid to eat food instead of drinking milk. He’s eating food. And he’s happy. And I need to find the cat.
Oh. Did I mention, I’m also supposed to be working this whole time? Yeah… that little thing… that is on a hard deadline.
So we all went out into the back… Russell was busy happily exploring the neighbor’s back yard and trying to beat up the neighbor’s cat. I couldn’t coax him back with food… or a string… or by calling him… Darn cats. At least he was staying in the neighbor’s yard.
In the end, I decided I just needed to go talk to the neighbor and go back and get him. I poured myself another cup of coffee. Jonny wanted to come to. At first i said “no.” Jonny started crying. The poor kid wanted to get his cat back. So I relented.
But as we went to get in the car, Russell nonchalantly jumped right back over the fence into our yard. I brought him back inside and locked him in the bedroom. He escaped again when Jonny accidentally opened the bedroom door. Jonah opened the backdoor again letting him out.
This time I caught him before he made it to the fence. Darn cat.
And in the meantime, one of my clients had called (I had to ignore), Jonah went back out to the backyard and started throwing rocks at the neighbor’s yard. I hoped he missed and just hit our fence, which would be fine… assuming the neighbors weren’t home (they were). I need to go to the bank… and the store… and I want to go to the gym today. I’ll be lucky to get to one of the three. I’m so thankful that my sister has volunteered to come help Jonny with his homework because that hour of 1 on 1 time (she is a paraeducator) is so vital for his development. But there is so much else to do.
And that is my morning.
I find I am really awful at multi-tasking. No. I am awful at organization, which translates into forgetting the other things I am supposed to be doing…which makes me awful at multi-tasking. That is probably my biggest weakness. Poor time management and organization.
I focus too much on what I am doing now. I forget to call people back… I forget to deposit checks… or read and do homework with my kids. I forget to work on school projects with them and will stretch myself thin with too many other commitments. I’ll have to run the same load of laundry 4 times because I’ll forget to transfer it to the dryer again and again and again.
Instead of doing one thing well, I do all the things I’m juggling poorly because my focus and energy is stretched thin. But multi-tasking is essential to parenting so it makes me feel like I am just really awful at parenting sometimes. My wife works all day at the hospital and it is mentally exhausting for her. So I do my best with stuff here at home. I also work doing graphic design, but from home… so a lot of the household chores have just sort-of become my responsibility on top of work and parenting.
There is always a “to-do” list with the highest priorities always taking precedent over things that get neglected…and KEEP getting neglected. It’s a problem. I realize it.
Things like nutrition. I’m an awful cook. Making grilled cheese sandwiches is actually challenging for me. I’ve ruined Easy-Mac. I’ll throw things in the oven and set it too high… or forget about it. My kids’ food aversions are fueled by the fact that I just don’t know how to prepare healthy meals and have no confidence in my cooking abilities and taking the time to learn takes a back seat to …pretty much everything else. Quick and easy is more important than healthy and nutritious. We’ll do fast food multiple times a week and pizza almost every other day. And it’s a victory if they even eat THAT food. (queue Jonah’s “milk” diet).
And if I’m being honest, I’m really not very good at basic housework. Things like the laundry never get fully done. The house hardly ever gets cleaned. I quit watering the lawn partially so I won’t have to mow it. I just let the grass die. I can’t remember the last time the house was vacuumed. Jonny has been wearing the same pair of socks for a week. Which probably means he hasn’t had a bath in at least that long. The garbages will pile up by the front door because I don’t want to risk letting Jonah elope when I open the door and I am often too tired to go outside to do it at night after he’s asleep. The house smells like two cats live here and their owner has “changing the cat litter” at the very bottom of the “to do” list. The upstairs bathroom smells like 2 boys live here and while the older one may have “aiming” problems, the younger one probably (definitely) just goes in the bathtub.
And I’m like “well, at least it’s not on the carpet.” I should bleach the tub… once I get all the bath toys out of there. I should clean those too. I’ll just throw them in the dishwasher on extra hot… once I put the dishes away… and do a load of actual dishes.
sigh
So many things to do. So many other more important things to do. It’s a dilemma. It’s ALWAYS a dilemma.
But the first step to fixing a problem is recognizing that there IS one. So this is me recognizing that. I need to work on my organization and time management…
…and parenting…
…and work…
What is the next step from here?