Last night's babysitting gig scored me many cookies. That made me happy. What made me less happy was the discovery that my laptop battery is only good for one game of "Age of Mythology" before going into hibernation.
So there I was. No laptop and I couldn't figure out how to make their DirectTV work. I'd eaten as many hamentaschen as seemed appropriate and hadn't brought a book with me. The search for magazines turned up nary a Vanity Fair, New Yorker or even Good Housekeeping. There was a stash of parenting magazines, specifically, parenting magazines for people with children under the age of 10. Been there, done that. But everything else in the house was in Hebrew, which is not one of my languages, so I settled for a 5 month old issue of "Child". Therein I discovered a movement called "Attachment Parenting" which apparently has as it's hallmarks things like co-sleeping, breastfeeding and carrying the baby/child around in a sling. Turns out that a dozen years ago I was cutting edge and didn't realize it. (Although apparently there's all sorts of new research on the risks of co-sleeping which wasn't available 12 years ago so all I can say is, "Oops. Sorry". And strictly speaking, I didn't use a sling because I didn't have one. I just carried her around a lot).
Frankly, too much information is a bad thing. If we really knew everything there was to know about parenting, trust me, no one would take it on. It can be the greatest joy you'll ever experience. It is also relentless. Once you're in, you are never not a parent. And sometimes that sucks. It sucks when you have to watch them struggle, be hurt, and make less than stellar choices. What happens if they grow up and vote for the other party? You love them anyway, of course. It's your child. But it can suck.
It really sucks when you devote your energies to instilling values only to find out that you probably have to go to school and have a "come to Jesus" with your kid and the teacher because your kid was caught in a questionable situation (no, it's not sex...sheesh) and then compounded her dubious behavior with a lie. Not that I know anyone in that situation, but I can imagine the mixture of emotions a parent might feel, the gut-twisting that embraces both humiliation and disappointment. On one hand, you'd feel that you had completely failed as a parent. On the other, you'd have a seething desire just to wring her neck. Or his neck, as the case may be. Again, not that I'd know from personal experience.
I did, once, step barefoot on a Lego. That, my friends, is a special kind of pain.
Labels: Gilmore girls, hamentashen
