Ah. The joy of parenting.

This week has been a doozie!

It started with another adjustment to T-Man’s meds. “Folks we have a winner!” Finally he’s back to himself and doing better in school. Except one little thing…a small thin…poor T keeps having accidents. Just tinkle accidents. But 5 so far this week, including an ‘incident’ at the local cupcake store we visit twice a week and another at the local Wally World. Seriously? My 8 year old? Argh. No infection, we’ve checked that. We’ve increased his fiber like the doctor said, but apparently that’s not working. Time to call the Doc again. He’s going to get sick of us!

Next up is my lovable but stubborn kinder-kid Mitch. When I asked him if he got any marks in class the other day he proudly announced, “Just 1 mark. But I didn’t hit anybody today!” Woohoo! 3 cheers for not being a bully! But when it came time to do homework he did not like the yellow pencil and wanted a blue pencil. Sorry sweetie, all we have is that one. “NO” I want a blue pencil. SeRiOuSlY? 45 minutes later, after much whining and grunts of dissatisfaction we completed our homework with the <gasp> yellow pencil. My hats off to you Mrs. Kindergarten Teacher. That was exhausting. Not sure if I won that round or not.

And to round it all out, (Because we wouldn’t want me congratulating myself on the one ‘good’ child for the week) in an attempt to help Bay with her theatre homework, she yells at us, cries, dramatically throws herself on the floor and refuses. {This girl will be a great actress one day based upon this performance alone} And when told she got grounded and lost her phone she screams “I hate you!” and runs into her room. Well, there you have it. Knew it would come at some point but it still stings. All because she didn’t want to practice her 45 second monologue in front of us. Well played, Bay. Now you’ve gotten grounded, lost your phone and privileges instead of spending less than a minute doing what I asked… smart girl. <sigh>

I have to constantly remind myself that surely every parent is going through things like this. Some have it easier, some have it worse.

But at the end of the night when my tween dissolves into tears and blubbers, “I don’t really hate you mommy” and my stubborn 5 year old hugs my neck and whispers, “I love you a hundred ways up” it somehow erases all the craziness and restores the soul.

That’s why we continue on. There’s goodness in there, as parents we know that. Sometimes we are the only ones who see it, but it’s our jobs to help bring that goodness out.