Fun with Jane

I was reading this post at The Kept Woman the other day. She has a friend (Jane) that is always happy, the kids always behaving, everything is wonderful. No stress...

I don't know any of these people. Maybe that's because I spend most of my time talking with fathers and not mothers. The men spend a cursory couple minutes on the family "How's the kids? How's the wife?" And then we move on to sensible topics like sports, poker and work.

So thankfully, I don't really know any pollyanna parents like the Jane TKW mentions. I'd probably slap Jane if I knew her. People like Jane give a bad name to parenting. It's fucking hard work. Don't get me wrong, it's incredibly rewarding. There are a ton of moments as a parent that are completely joyous and unique. But that doesn't stop both kids from screaming at the same time for 30 minutes. It doesn't stop the constant need for attention. It doesn't replace the lost sleep for the first 6 months of their life.

Let me tell you, I love my kids more than anything I could have ever imagined. But my wife is some kind of a saint to be able to be a stay at home mom, and be such a great mother. When my little one screams (as he did for several nights last week trying to get back on schedule after the holidays) DW and I can both literally - and that's not a word I use lightly - can feel our blood pressure rise.

It doesn't happen a lot. But when it does, it takes all the Zen philosophy I can muster not to boil over. I have a long fuse....but that crying sure burns it fast.

My lovely MIL, decided that we didn't have enough toys "with lots of tiny parts" for the kids. If I believed in Hell, I think buying toys that make noise, require construction, and/or have lots of small parts for your family is qualification for Level 2 of Hell.

Dear Wife suggests (as she's making dinner and completely indisposed) to the kids, "Ask Daddy to build that great Parking Garage with all those delicate, hard to put together parts." So at this point, I'm stuck. BigBrother now knows "But Mommy said I could" so I couldn't do anything but put the damn thing together.

Here's a link to the toy I had to put together. It wouldn't have been bad if there had been a beer in my hand, 2 kids in bed and football on TV. However, there was no beer, no football, and the kids were trying to play with it while I was putting it together.

So, lets just say it was frustrating. The climax of this little scene was when Daddy broke a piece and said "DAMMIT. I broke the thing." BigBrother got the little puppy eyes and ran crying to Mommy. Thankfully I taught him the D Word is "doppleganger" because I didn't like being scolded by my almost 3 year old.

Anyways, the toy eventually worked and both boys loved playing with it. So I guess all's well that ends well. But MIL is still qualified for Level 2 nonetheless.