Come to the Dark Side, we have Cookies.

Have you ever seen that T-shirt? It's funny and my sons adore it. They adore anything even remotely Star Wars related.

Today I was reading the Star Wars related blog http://liayf.blogspot.com/ where a dad blogger who usually posts about precious moments with his son instead exposed the struggles he has in parenting. It got me thinking that a large part of why I find it hard to make time for myself is due to the "Dark Side" of parenting and that maybe I should blog about it too. As I mentioned on his site, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Hope he takes it as the compliment I mean it to be.

Of course you never know how these things will work out in cyberworld.

Parenting is a beautiful, amazing, eye opening, thrilling, (insert any soppy adjective you'd like here) time in my life. I really truly love being a mom. Of course being a mom is what made me need this blog because being a parent does indeed have a very dark side, and I visit it way too often. It sucks the time, energy, focus and creativity right out of me (luckily it feeds directly into them). It's a dark place, but it does usually have cookies (today they are fresh baked chocolate chip.)

So without further ado, here is my current list of struggles.

VOLUME CONTROL
All caps plus bold means yelling right?

Just want to make sure that you understand what I am saying here.

My kids have zero volume control. We start at a 9 and go way past 11 (This is Spinal Tap!). I wake up angry when my day starts at this volume. I whisper yell SSSSSHHHHHH!!!!! on a way to regular basis and my children are young and encouragable (but not in a cute way like that Von Trapp kid) so there is no end in sight.

You think I am exaggerating, but no, I have had my hearing tested twice in the past year because I truly feel they are causing me to go deaf. Every time the ear Dr. lady (that's as official of a title as I can come up with, what are they actually called?) tests me she patiently tells me my hearing is fine and that maybe I have trouble focusing and paying attention. Apparantly I have self taught myself to tune out everything.

If you see my kids, tell them to be quiet, ok?

EMOTIONAL OUTBURSTS
Apparently my kids are exhausted, ALL THE TIME.

Apparently exhaustion leads to emotional outbursts, EVERYDAY.

As I am typing this my 4 yr old is standing in my doorway yelling at his dad, "That makes me so mad! AAAAAHHHHHH! I won't stop screaming til I stop crying! AAAAAAHHHHHH! That hurted my feelings daddy. Sorry daddy for screaming can I have a hug?"

Our house is an emotional rollercoaster. The noted outburst is because they are going to bed 30 minutes late and he was getting his pajamas and his brother put them in the dogs water so now they are too wet to wear to bed. But it really wouldn't matter what had happened, he was tired and he needed to yell, cry and then calm down. It's what he does.

And the 4 yr old isn't the worst one. My oldest takes some strong allergy and asthma meds that keep him tired all the time. This means he lives on the emotional rollercoaster and we are all forced to ride it all day every day along with him.

I understand all of this and I even sympathize.

Here's where I struggle.

My kids go to bed at 7pm. They get up at 6am. We have a rest period every day and the 4 yr old still takes 2hr naps. Exactly when else can I give them time to rest? I went crying to the dr. and changed their vitamins but mostly I am just praying that I can ride this emotional storm out before it wipes me out.

BAD ATTITUDES
This has come up countless times in the past week as I met up with some of my favorite mom friends over Spring Break.

Apparently when you're about to turn 7 it gives you license to say whatever you want in whatever tone you want.

This causes me to turn into every parent stereotype you can think of as I yell, "Don't take that tone with me!" "Watch your tone young man!" heck I've even done the coneheads reference, "Maintain low tones, maintain low tones."

I follow the parenting bibles and model for them, patiently explain, role play and generally perform as any perfect parent would, but the reality is they test me.

Over and over and over.

ACTING HIS AGE
This one is solely for my 4yr old.

He either thinks he's 10 or 2, but never ever 4.

In the past few weeks he continuously travels through time as he insists he can swim alone or be outside without an adult and then can't dress himself or tell us what food he would like to eat.

He lives in a world of "I can do it, leave me alone" and "I don't know how" at the same time and its exhausting and futile to try to deal with him in either age group.

I continue to treat him as a 4yr old and hope someday he'll get the hint that this is in fact the age he should act.

That's it, those are my current struggles.

I say this because I assume you all understand and acknowledge that I have the worlds greatest kids who can do no wrong. They are genius angels sent from God to make the world a better place.

This is how I feel about them 90% of the time.

The other 10% I live in a dark dark place where the above concerns haunt me and taunt me as I pray for the time when the Dark side will lose its battle.

But not before I eat the cookies.