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Monday, April 1, 2013

Adventures in Parenting: Oh SNAP! Crackle Popped!

It's been a week.
I had full intentions on restarting my Blog with a Bang last week but here we are and I haven't updated in over a week. So much for my Season of Sanctification and being better than ever. I'm lucky I have actually survived the last week. I'm still wondering if I have.

I almost drowned when I was six. I went to sleepover, my first ever, I think. We stayed up and watched "The Brady Bunch" and participated in whatever it is little six-year-old girls do on Friday night. I was a bed-wetter and I cannot remember if I wet that night but I do remember that I was one of the first asleep. I was like that back then. Maybe that's what triggered the inability to go to bed first later in my life, I don't know but back then I was not afraid to go to sleep when I was tired. I was sure whatever was going on without me certainly was not as interesting... I mean, I wasn't involved so how could it be interesting?

The next day was exciting. What I remember is getting to go swimming in my friend's pool. There had to have been 10-12 girls there and I myself would not do that. I did let my girls have a sleepover once where we had over 10 girls show up and it was a disaster. And we didn't have a pool, they were just rowdy girls who thought I would be a pushover... I wasn't. Anyway, I digress. The mother had forethought and hired a lifeguard which was a good thing, for me. Thinking I was a smarty-pants (and I think on a dare) I pushed myself into the deep end ... and proceeded to drown. What I remember is closing my eyes and when I opened them again the lifeguard was holding me. I passed out in the water. I have no idea if they did mouth-to-mouth on me or not. The first thing the mom asked me when I "woke up" was if I wanted a sucker. She meant candy but I had a baby brother and I knew a sucker was a pacifier so I responded just like I would by retorting,  "NO! I'm not a baby!" and proceeding to hop back into the pool for more. I think I did, but maybe I didn't.

I do not think they told my mother about this incident. That was the weirdest part. Wouldn't you? I mean She was obviously a good mother, she hosted this huge party and even hired a lifeguard but she didn't tell my mother that I almost drowned? That's just crazy. But I don't think she did, and actually I get that too. Who wants that kind of stigma? But what if I had drowned. Trauma & lifelong counseling to all around! Every little girl at that party would have been screwed up.

It happens.

Parents screw up their kids every day. It's inevitable. Maybe the kid is just difficult or maybe the mom is having a bad day one day and BAM! screwed up kids. Sometimes the kids screw each other up. That happens too. Some parents should not be parents and that I get as well. I also believe that people can change, people can break the cycle of bad parenting. I believe that.

And what is the point of all this? I worry all the time that I am a bad parent. I have three boys at home. I have two girls living away from home and thriving on their own so I know (because of them) that I can do some things right. The three boys? I don't know. I worry that I'm tired. I'm sick. I have trouble functioning (although I do better with Fibromyalgia or Post-herpetic neuralgia, or whatever it is I have--than I ever did with depression!).

Last week was a doozy. I am coping with a very difficult and volatile middle child who can only be held accountable to a certain extent--of which I am uncertain. Every single day is a challenge. Every. Single. Day. Decisions have to be made and sometimes those decisions can break your heart. The point is that a good parent makes decisions that are hard. Good parents do hard things. Good parents take their kids to the doctor, to school and to church. Good parents call the sheriff on their kids when they are threatening to hurt themselves or others. They let the sheriff take them when they cannot keep them safe. That's what a good parent does. Even when they don't want to do it, and it breaks their heart.

Ergo. I am a good parent. It's not really the adventure I would choose, but I am a good parent.

2 comments:

  1. Remembering the slumber parties we used to have at your house, and the time we were just positive that we needed your Dad to wake up and pray with us, because we were ALL freaked out and thought a bad spirit had invaded our Beehive fun night. Ugh. But your Dad was soooo sweet and kept smiling anyway, let us sing Primary songs until we settled down. I didn't think we had as much drama back in the day until I remembered this...and yet I've hosted a few slumber parties for my girls as well; one time a child came down with scarlet fever and I had to call all the other parents and warn them in case she was contagious. Guess we're gluttons for punishment, huh?

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  2. Oh yes. That was lovely. LOL But if I recall the demise of that gathering can lay solely on the heads of my horrible brothers.
    Haha! Teenage girls, what was my mother thinking?

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