A lesson in patience

Because I love kids, I never thought parenting would be this hard. When giving what he wants won't do him good, and not giving what he wants would upset him, I realized it takes a whole lot more than providing and having fun. My little boy is now two going "threenager", and I'm having doubts as to whether I can really do this. Not that I won't, because I will; I don't have any choice. But what I'm trying to say is...

Lately, there had been more crying than usual. And not just crying, but really ugly cyring, with all the wailing and kicking of feet and flailing of arms. It's annoying that you want it to stop, but you can't without giving in. Or you could wait until 30minutes til he stop on his own, and hope to best he still likes mommy. It's really hard -- being patient, staying patient, being consistent. I am almost always impatient. It's almost always easy for me to lose my temper. I am also (a lot of) a crybaby. Sometimes Most times, I think I am emotionally unfit for this job. It also most certainly doesn't help when everyone's (sort of) putting you to blame.

I double nurse my kids, btw. Meaning, I still breastfeed both my daughter, who is now seven months, and the said boy. Yes, you got that right -- I breastfeed a 2 and a half y/o boy. Please don't judge too easy -- I wish I can explain myself. There's more to stopping than using force. You see, breastfeeding, it has become my defense mechanism. When the boy's crying, breastfeed. When the boy's sleepy, breastfeed. When the boy wants something else that you can't ever give (like sharp things and those kind of plain no-no's stuff), breastfeed. It's like a new motto: when in doubt, breastfeed. It never fails. He would stop crying, he would love me even more. And while he feeds, I would explain the things he can and can't, or should and shouldn't do. And he seems to be listening.

But I won't deny; I agree I'm probably at fault. I have heard from people that the idea of nursing them is what's making him jealous of his baby sister. By jealous I mean, when I'm at home, there would be times when he doesn't want me to hold his sister. He will allow it if we (both my boy and I) will be playing/taking care of the baby girl, but if I'm totally going to ignore the boy, no chance will he let me do that. I get him though -- I work full time from 8 in the morning 'til 12 in the next morning. No, actually, I don't work straight on those hours, but currently we're living too far away from work that commuting takes up most of our time. My boy probably misses us a lot; you can just imagine how hard it is to go to work without upsetting the little man. And his puppy eyes and cute widdle voice don't help when he begs "mommy don't go to work please?". He would say things like watching Korean TV series (because that's what he knows I enjoy watching), or playing pretend (because that's our favorite game -- "I be the monster, you be the shark"). I seriously am close to becoming a ninja, with all the sneaking out of the house, or a secret agent working on how to trick him into doing something else than closely watching my ever move.

What I'm trying to say is... I know it's hard, but I will do this. I'm not complaining, though I am hoping so bad to learn as quickly as possible -- this patient thingy really gets me. We still have to figure out how to react to his mood swings, and to his, for lack of a better term, "unnecessary wants". And there's going to be more drama than I ever thought. But my little boy is an amazing kid, and becoming his mommy is a wonderful experience. Knowing that I am his favorite person in the world is 'aww'-able enough to make me want to be a better person. With cups of coffee, comforting hugs from the hubby, and loud tickle fights with the kids, I won't give up; PARENTING, we got you. You are so going down!



P.S. I am only trying to write as positively as I can. But no, I'm not pretending to be okay. All I know is... I want to, and I should be for my kids.