Things I Didn’t Expect When I Decided to Have Kids

Sitting in a 30 degree barn trying to edit entries for a PDF while my daughter sits on the back of a horse who is not entirely on board with this whole trotting thing. My fingers were gloved, but cold and at least half of the time was spent adjusting the saddle or stirrups. Naturally her last proclamation as we left the barn was “I want my own pony!”

Sitting down at the table and reaching across to touch my son’s hand, because I want his full attention for my apology. I owed it, because in response to his homework stress I had increased my volume and frustration. He was overwhelmed and I made it worse instead of teaching him how to navigate through it. I get tired, especially after a long day of trying to make all the good parenting moves even when they run counter to my inclinations. So I snapped at him and he ran to his room. So I apologized as my father once apologized to me in similar circumstances.

Handing a kid a timer with instructions to turn off the rice when it beeps so that I can run to the store and by bread for a different kid who doesn’t like the rice dish. Normally I’d tell him he’ll survive or let him find other food, but I had lingering lack-of-bread guilt from all weekend long when we also did not have bread because I kept not going to the store.

Running to the library at 8:30pm because Netflix doesn’t have any good documentaries on WWI that are available for streaming. (Also there was no Netflix when I decided to have kids, so there’s that too.)

The sheer quantity of dishes and clothing that I would have to argue the children into cleaning. Even though the fact that they have chores should not, on any day, be a surprising and devastating piece of news. Yet somehow the announcement of chores is always greeted as the End of Days. Except this afternoon my teenager brought the can in from the curb unasked, because kids like to confuse parents with hopeful signs of maturity.

To be scolded by my cat. I know that has nothing to do with having kids, but really I never thought I’d have a cat. I’m allergic to them. For the longest time being around them gave me asthma attacks, but this one showed up and somehow I acclimated to her and now I’m fine so long as I don’t rub my face on her. Which leads me to the place where I have a small furry creature who follows me around and yells at me because I’m reading her mind improperly.

That they would make me laugh, not just in an “oh look how cute” way, but also in an intelligently clever way.

Yes all these things happened today. Tomorrow I’ll learn more new things.