The Price of Being Cool - Diane Truscott

On Thursday night, I discovered the price of being the “cool” mom/aunt. It all started when my 6 year old niece, Tori, was in town and wanted to stay the night at my house with my 6 year old daughter, Isabel. And, because Isabel had someone to stay the night, my son Jaedon (3 years old) asked if his best friend (my 3 year old nephew, Hunter) could stay the night. In my mind, I thought, “This will keep them busy and make it easier on me, right?” This week had already been harder than usual because my husband was out of town and I had been single parenting my two older children as well as my 3 month old infant (kudos to single parents!)

The evening started out with its usual chaos of trying to feed 5 starving kids at 5 p.m. I quickly cooked up a stack of pancakes and sausage links for all the kids, which they promptly and messily devoured. Finally, an hour later, I sat down to eat a luke-warm pancake with a cold sausage while I breastfed my baby. The kids were happily playing in the sanctuary of my backyard while I burped the baby and washed the dishes.

While doing the dishes, my 3 year old son calls me to the bathroom where he had gone to do his business...but had left a big poo smear on the seat as he dismounted. At this point, I decide it is time for baths so I start the shower for the 2 boys first. Of course, they flooded my floor while I am busy scrubbing the toilet seat. After a lecture on making messes, I washed their hair and got them out. Next, the 2 girls got into the shower. While the girls showered, I dressed the boys in their pajamas and gave them a drink. I went back to the bathroom to help the girls wash their hair and clean up. By the time I got done with helping the girls out of the shower, the boys had spilled juice on their pajamas in a spitting contest! I stripped them out of their first set of pajamas and got them into clean pajamas. The older girls got dressed in their pajamas and came out for their snack as I wiped up the floor and tables where the boys had spit their juices.

By now, I am exhausted so I pulled out the hide-a-bed, put in a movie, and made popcorn for each kid. As I finished cleaning up the bathroom and the dishes, I hear my baby crying...the boys had been playing racecars in the house and woke her up by being so loud. After I scolded the boys and sent them back to the bed to watch the movie, my niece Tori comes into the kitchen and vomits, not once, not twice but 5 times on my floor! So, I put the baby down, loved Tori better, got her some Gatorade and put her back in bed. I returned to the kitchen to face down the flood of vomit consisting of chunks of pancakes, popcorn, and sausage! Of course, the boys are magically drawn to anything that is messy and wanted to “help”.

After almost losing my own meager dinner several times while cleaning up the flood of vomit, I decided I better take the garbage out or it will stink in the house. As I lifted the garbage bag out of the can, the can fell and landed on my toe. I’m not one to curse but it took every ounce of motherly love I could muster not to swear in front of the kids because I was sure I had broken my toe! My baby was crying forcefully in the background by now, I’m hold vomit/garbage in my hands, and I can’t even walk to get it out to the outside garbage! Finally, I limped the garbage out, came back in and nursed my baby again, yelled at the 2 rambunctious boys who have hit the I’m-so-tired-I’m-actually-wired stage, and got a bowl so Tori wouldn’t puke on my bed.

At this point, I decided, it is time for lights out! This, of course, sends every kid into tears and whines of, “I’m not tired!”, “I want my mommy!”, and “I’m hungry!” By now, I had no desire to be “cool” anymore and I threatened them (as gently as possible) to all stay in their beds...or else. I crawled into bed at 10:30 p.m. that night and decided I the price of being the cool mom/aunt is way too high!

Comments

[JDZ]

Sounds hectic and not so cool.