Hello,. 

I have returned from my second morning. 

Yes, that’s right. 

There are two mornings over here in little kid-land.

The first morning is when your 3-year old turns the lights on, jumps on the bed, and pokes you in the face ’til your eyes open. It also includes the running around the kitchen, prepping breakfast, packing the backpack, placing the breakfast on the table, helping them open the bag of chia seeds, and then rejecting that breakfast because we only wanted to SPRINKLE the chia seeds on the oatmeal, not EAT the chia seeds. All while mom is trying to nurse the baby.

And then comes the second morning. Because the things listed above feel like morning enough. But I guess there’s more. 

Second morning consists of trying to make a game out of putting on our clothes. If we can beat the timer and our clothes are on, we win the game! What game? What’s the prize? Who freaking cares. If someone starts counting to 60, the game is ON and we are going to WIN.

And so we start counting. And we count really fast so Mom can see how good I am at counting. But then we realize that we’re approaching 60 real quick and we’ve only got our underwear on, so we have to count a little backwards in the 40s to make up some time. So what was supposed to take 60 seconds actually took like 240 seconds with all the back and forth.

And then once the clothes are on, we have to scream that we don’t want to wear the jacket 875 times. And we climb into the stroller without our shoes on. Which is fine because Mom is OK with that since we have to change our shoes when we get to school anyway. But today’s the day that I scream that I want to wear my shoes NOW. But not the stinky sneakers my mom put in the stroller. I WANT MY RAINBOOTS.

And I KNOW mom said it’s not raining and there’s no rain in the forecast for days, but I’m looking out the window and there’s rain. I see it. I SEE IT. SO WE HAVE TO WEAR THE RAINBOOTS. 

“RAINBOOTS IT IS. BUT GET THEM YOURSELF!”

So we scramble outta the stroller, we get the rainboots, we put the left one on our right foot and the right one on our left foot but mom would be a damn fool if she tried to correct that shit right now. 

So we hurry outside.  

We can see our breath. We can’t feel our fingers. And, would you believe it, NO RAIN?!

But eventually we reach the school.

Mom punches the code in.

“BUT I WANTED TO PUSH THE CODE.”

And then we do a little dance in the lobby. Where Mom pretends she needs to sit down and take some calming breaths (but I mean is she REALLY pretending, we’ll never know). And so we all sit down and take calming breaths while the baby is sleeping in the stroller. And then we hustle upstairs and the hallway chaos ensues. And there’s a person standing between us and suddenly…

“DON’T LEAVE WITHOUT SAYING BYEEEEEE.”

“I will never leave without saying bye!”

We race toward each other. We give hugs and kisses. 

My shoulders fall from my ears. 

And now I am here. 

Second morning over. 

Someone messaged me a while back on my Eat Teach Blog FB page and said, “How would adults feel if we posted their tantrums like adults post childrens?”

I don’t know which post she is referring to. It might not even be something I shared about Ishu. I generally just share a lot of memes that have to do with HOW FREAKING HARD AND CONFUSING IT IS TO BE A PARENT.

But, I’ll say here what I didn’t have the energy to write back to her at the time. (Probably cause I was on my 6th morning that day).

I AM NOT SHARING MY KID IN THE MIDST OF THEIR TANTRUM.

I AM SHARING THINGS THAT ARE SO VERY REAL AND SO VERY HARD ON PARENTS RAISING SMALL KIDS.

IT IS NOT TO SHAME MY CHILD.

IT IS TO SHARE THE VERY REAL EXPERIENCE OF HAVING YOUNG KIDS.

My kid is amazing. Wouldn’t trade him for anything. I will accept all these big emotions, big reactions, ALL OF IT. Because he is the absolute best kid.

I’m just sharing that this shit happens in our life. I am not the only one having two mornings. There are other parents out there having two mornings. Three! Maybe even 4!

IT’S HARD. IT’S HARD. IT’S HARD.

I am not standing there with my video camera, recording my child having a meltdown. I AM IN IT WITH HIM. 100%. I am there, by his side, ready to receive all the emotions bubbling out of him. Ready to help him co-regulate.

And THEN, and THEN, way after the fact, I will occasionally come here and talk about it. But not at the shame of my child. Never at the shame of my child.

So, random stranger on the Internet, to answer your question, I am not POSTING MY CHILD’S TANTRUM.

I might be having one of my own right now.

There are a lot of capital letters in this post.

Okay, I will leave now.

I have to take some deep breaths and recover from 2nd morning. And weird Internet trolls.

Good day to all. Sending you love if you are on your second or third morning this morning.