Challenging

I haul myself out of bed but this time not because I haven't slept well, my son is actually sleeping very well at night, at some point in time he comes to bed with us, good thing too because it is continuing justification for my king sized bed purchase last fall, so it isn't a lack of sleep that is making me drag and it isn't even the seasonal allergies that are kicking my butt right now it is the foot that is in my face and the other that is in my rib and it is the screaming laughter, ok, so mostly the screaming that makes me cringe and roll over slowly. It is another day with a two year old. You know people say a lot of things but my parents were happy to help confirm that the next year of my life is going to be one of the most challenging I have faced. "Challenging" that is a great word. Challenging really means miserable to me for the most part but that really doesn't have anything to do with the word itself. I am one of those kinds of people who doesn't really like challenges because usually that means I don't know how to do whatever it is I get frustrated, usually there are tears involved, sometimes anger of some sort and then... I overcome, HA! What were you expecting? I didn't say that I didn't overcome my challenges, I am a very competitive person.

But this is different. Why? Because this is a piece of life that I don't want to just bulldoze my way through, I want to not be frustrated for the next year and I certainly don't want to cry my way through it and the interesting thing about children is that they seem to adapt and overcome every one of my challenges creating a new and very creative labyrinth, amazing little people. But this is the time for me to overcome and in a totally different way because I can't use the same tack that I have used all my life. So what is it to be? In all honesty I am not sure but yesterday I came to a realization as I thought and wrote the words "I do not like being the mother of a 2 year old", now of course I love my son and there are plenty of great times and fun times but seriously almost every day I am brought to a crisis feeling in myself. I know that changing my thoughts about it to the "terrific twos" like I have heard some other parents say is just not going to work, as far as I can tell for me it would just be trying to cover up the fact that this is difficult with a false mental attitude that would eventually crack and crumble under the stress in a few weeks... a few months and usually things crumble with a BANG! when it comes to toddlers.

I have not come to a full conclusion but I know it has something to do with becoming more of the new person I started becoming when I birthed my son just over 2 years ago. Honestly, he ranks right on up there with the more frustratingly cute teachers I have ever had.