Fail

Clearly, I have failed as a mother.  Clearly.  Just a few moments ago, my youngest daughter, B, asked me: “Are we whole Americans, or are we half American, half something else?”   Hahaha, sigh.  So this led us to a discussion of our own mixed bag of European heritage.  Which then led us to a discussion of other languages. 

My oldest daughter, Fia, wants to learn French, as I did in high school.  She was asking me various “how to say…” questions.  I remembered a little.  We started talking about slang in other languages and also in our own.  This led us to a discussion of curse words, and the kids wanted to know if other languages had curse words.  “Yes,” I assured them.  And yes, I remember them.   Frankly, I can swear in three languages – four, if you count my mother tongue. 

So, Fia then asks me, “How did you learn the bad words?”  Well, my friend Kevin (a dear friend for many years of my childhood) taught me some.  He also taught me how to say: “I think I am going to cough up a hairball,” which he learned from a book titled French for Cats or something like that.  But the rest I learned in France when I visited.  Fia, then asked…wait for it…wait for it:  “How did you figure it out before Google?”

Oh, really, are we that old? Fail.

Here’s another example of my failure.  This weekend, Anna B earned some money for chores, and she wanted a bit more so she could buy her brother, Nate, a birthday present.  So since she knew that Johnjohn had a dollar, she wheedled him into giving her his dollar if she did a magic trick.  At dinner, when we told Daddy about this, Johnjohn says:  “Actually, it was Jamey’s dollar. I still have mine.”  Parenting fail.  Sigh.

Yesterday, was a day where my desire to flee the house was overwhelming.  It started with everyone oversleeping.  Then no one was following directions to hurry up, get dressed, get downstairs.   We finally got moving on our schoolwork, but when it came to Latin, my son, Nate, decided he just wasn’t doing it, or listening to me.  He yelled; he cried.  He stomped out of the house.  Fail. Fia kept pulling her disappearing teenager act.  The dog wouldn’t stop barking, but I couldn’t get her in the house.  James peed his pants three times. (Fail.  He’s been potty trained for a year, but I guess I have to start setting a timer again.  Yay.   One more thing to oversee and follow through on.)  The kids made the yard a huge mess and kept fooling around instead of cleaning it up.  Then I made the ultimate mistake of trying to get Nate to finish his weekend chores; all that was left was cleaning his room.   I asked the younger three to help, and I offered them a 1$ reward.  So they get to work, but Nate, who’s spend the last six weeks complaining that the boys don’t help, came down to whine at me that he “doesn’t work well with others," and that he just wanted to do it himself.  But now the littles are pumped to earn a dollar.  Then I told Nate that he had to clean his room, and if the little boys wanted to help, he couldn’t exclude them.  And I said, cleaning it up was not an option; chores are a basic responsibility if he wanted to be a part of this family.  So he stormed out of the house again:  “Well maybe I don’t want to be a part of this family.” 

So I said, “Fine, leave.”  Sigh.  Parenting fail.

And the bickering and unkindness and constant tattling just went on and on.  I was trying to make dinner, knowing Dan had a meeting after work and wouldn’t be home until after the kids’ bedtime.  The kids sort of cleaned up the yard.  (But this morning as I went to feed the chickens, I found two Barbie rollerblades, one sled, one watering can, one sneaker, and every toy weapon the boys own out there - all rained upon last night).
 

So the boys’ room went unfinished.  And dinner was late.  And Nate wouldn’t do his dishes chore – Fia had done her part.  As I was getting the little boys ready for bed, we had tooth trouble.  They had brushed their teeth, but then proceeded to eat the pretzels that Nate had brought up to his room against my wishes.  So I told them to brush again.  Then, Jamey proceeded to drink juice out of a sippy that he found.  Brush again.  Finally, as I went to put them in bed, I realized most of what had been on the floor in the boys’ room was now on John’s bed.  I looked over at James’s bed, and it was naked.  No fitted sheet, no mattress cover.  But wait- what was that?  What the h**l was that?  On the naked mattress, was a disgusting wet pile of chewed-up-spit-out pretzel.   And at this, I just became a raving lunatic.  I let out one long wavering howl of frustration.  Parenting fail.

Turns out, John had chewed them up and spit them out, in order to pretend his “mouth was pooping.”  Dear Lord, really?  This is really my daily minutia?  Please, God, tell me you care about even this, ‘cause I just can’t take it.  Every effort to teach and demonstrate manners and decorum is lost on the young Y-chromosome.  Sigh.  Parenting fail.

The day ended with me feebly attempting to teach physics formulas to Fia, because Dan wasn’t home yet.  Thank God he arrived one equation in.

And, today?  Well.  B is done with all her school except two things I have to do with her.  John practiced the letter “L” and Sophie is sort of working.  She’s been sure to sing lots of songs and stand in the chairs at the homeschool table and ask me how people learned things before Google.  And Nate?  He hasn’t even started his first subject, even though I’ve put him back in his seat like six times and told him to go there at least 6 million times.  Yes, today appears to be shaping up as one where those alpha-bits will be seeking to get the better of Nate.  So, I am signing off, putting on my armor, asking God to bless this fight with His presence, and I will carry on.  He's the only One who will get us all through the daily muck and mire...

Thankful to be caught in His web,

MamaWebb