Highs and Lows: A Parenting Roller Coaster

When you are expecting your first child everyone has endless amounts of advice for you. Some advice is all rainbows and sunshine, and some–more practical. One piece of advice (or warning, rather) I never got was a heads up about the extreme emotional ups and downs of parenting. I’m a pretty even-keeled person.

I have neither the energy or patience for drama and I tend to be pretty practical. I’ll cry about anything military-appreciation related and at Publix Valentine’s Day commercials, but most challenges I face I can calmly tackle. Which is why I was so completely caught off guard at the emotional roller coaster of motherhood.

In the infant stage, I was terrified now that my heart was outside my body, sleeping in a pink onesie in a yellow lamb-covered bassinet. There was nothing sweeter than watching my daughter fall asleep in my arms. Until the terrible nights when she started suffering from reflux and screamed and screamed from dinner until bedtime without stopping. I’d sing to her in a dark room until she stopped, arms aching, hungry for dinner, frustrated I couldn’t fix whatever was bothering her, angry at myself for failing as a parent, but then 30 seconds later I was unbelievably happy when she finally fell asleep, and I could put her in her crib.

Fast forward to when our son joined our family. My daughter adores him, and he worships her. I go from melting into a puddle at the sound of his little voice saying, unprompted, “I LUV YOU, SISSY!” to super mad five seconds later when I walk into the living room and realize he at some point scribbled on the couch with a pink dry erase marker that I didn’t know he had somehow managed to get.

I go from jelly at the sweetness of them reading books together, curled up on the bed under their blankies, to nothing short of yelling when my son bites his sister 30 seconds later for no reason.

I am awed at my daughter’s patience as she volunteers to put her brother down for a nap, and then mad at her five minutes later for finding she has colored her name on the kitchen table.

I am giggling with them as they play in the bathtub and loving their smiles, to aggravated beyond belief a minute later when my son sloshes a huge wave of water over the side of the tub that floods the bathroom floor.

I look forward to picking up my daughter from school, excited to hear about her day until she gets in the car and has a giant meltdown about the buckles on her car seat and how she doesn’t want to be in a five point harness. And I go from happy to see her to angry at my poor inability to explain that I don’t want her to die in a car accident, and, therefore, she will be in a five point until she is much bigger and I don’t care what the other moms do.

I am finally relieved that the kids’ room is picked up and clean, and then I walk into the kitchen and get mad when I realize there is green play doh ground into the rug under the table. How do they move so fast?

I am enjoying a Disney-perfected movie minute with my little boy, laughing at Despicable Me, but then seriously angry by the next scene because I have realized he has peed on the couch.

I am continually surprised at how in a nano-second everything can go from a Pinterest-worthy moment, to complete chaos with both kids crying, the dog barking, milk on the floor, legos everywhere, marker on the windows, juice box straw wrappers stuck to my foot, my daughter slamming the door and my son kicking the wall in a tantrum.

The joys of parenting.

There are so, so many sweet moments. And so, so many really hard, aggravating, infuriating ones.

I know my reaction is what -I- need to work on – and (mostly) not my kids. They’re sweet, loving and generous and (mostly) well behaved. I just need to take a deep breath, recognize the ups and downs as temporary, and get on with things the best I can.

And scrub the marker out of the couch.