This is a VERY hard post to make, but I think it needs to be more "normalized" ... that's the words the kids are saying these days... right?!?
In 3 days, My little baby Heidi, turns 2 years old .... I guess I can't call her a "baby" anymore, although she will ALWAYS be my baby. By the time she turned 18 months (1 year and a half) she was WELL aware of her surroundings, what she wants, & when she wants it. She is a EXTREMELY high active toddler. If she had the choice, she would climb trees all day long, explore new things & figure out how everything works and do as she pleases, but sometimes as a parent you need to stop some of the behavior to better our children.
where do i even begin? I think im going to start with the statement "I have never been a parent to a 2 year old before"
Heidi is my 1st born, my only child, the light in my life. Everyday is something different and joyful, but there are days where i feel like i have become a monster mom, and let me tell you, mom guilt, is a real thing. Me and David (my fiance) agreed to be what they would call "laid back parents". Don't get me wrong, we still are, but now that our baby is a toddler, we can't be as "laid back" as we would like.
me, personally, as a stay at home mom, automatically I become the bad parent, the mean parent, the one that always says no or stop. all day, constantly. I live in Canada, it is currently winter, and for the past 3 weeks we have had pretty much a POLAR VORTEX with temperatures hitting the -50C mark. This is normal for us, but with a toddler, the cold, and covid... physically being trapped in your home is damaging. In Canada, most parents want to "harden off" their children in the winter, but when you have a high active toddler, it takes 5-10 minutes to get dressed to go outside, when you get outside, they play for 2-5 min. mittens off, hands in snow, cry's, parent puts mittens back on, toddler cries to come inside, 5 min undress. when you read that back, it sounds like a lot of work for nothing, so for the past 3 ish weeks. . . i have become the parent who neglected the outside world and didn't leave my house.
& i have no one to blame but myself.
I think people need to share more of their experiences with being a parent for the first time, because I am going through SOME STUFF. We have always been the parents who turned the TV on, let their toddler eat on the couch, & gave her anything she wanted to eat, drink, at anytime of the day, any day. WOW, that kid has a good life! But, then it catches up to you, and the toddler starts OUTSMARTING you, & pretty much controlling you. As a sahm, you become more irritable when things don't go the way you want them to.
I put a large blame on the global pandemic that is happening right now. We have been trapped in our homes, for almost 1 year. Where I live, we have gone through TWO extreme lock downs, 2nd one being a lot more aggressive then the 1st one. Where we literally couldn't purchase Christmas gifts IN A WALMART. Out numbers have been going down, things have been opening, the weather seems to be getting better but I still want to put the blame on my "bad parenting" on covid.
I have other sahm friends, who have children under the age of 5 still. WE are not allowed to go to each others homes, for our children to play together yet kids in school, are allowed to gather in large groups, with all their friends, and socialize, play, grow as a child needs to grow but we as sahm's aren't allowed to see others on a much smaller scale.
I have been trapped in a house, that has four walls, with a toddler, for a year.
Like, I mentioned, the restrictions on what we are allowed to do, has opened up and allowed us to visit friends with kids. So, the other day, Heidi and I went to a friends house. She has a 3.5 year old and a 18 month old. Heidi hasn't really been able to play with other kids, because of covid, and everything shutting down. She was fine playing with the kids, but I them realized that after about an hour she started getting upset, throwing tantrums, which she has done at home, but the fact she was doing it in someone else's home, when the other toddler wasn't, was honestly embarrassing as a parent. Snack time with the kids roll around, the 3.5 year old, sits beautifully, at the table, eating her snack, properly...while my 2 year old, is running around with food in her mouth and hand, screaming, making a mess. My embarrassment as a parent, grows. I quickly realized, i have fucked up as a parent. I have not been a good enough parent.
Talking and seeing how other moms handle situations, and how they do things, is extremely important for sahm's or sah parents to experience. We can all learn from different people always and i learnt that day, that i need to set boundaries.
After crying myself to sleep a few nights, i came up with a game plan. I brought the game plan to the table and David agreed with it.
kids.
need.
boundaries.
I consider myself a pretty organized human being, so after crying about it, I realized this could be fun, IT WILL BE HARD, but it will make not only Heidi grow into a pleasant human being, but it will make ME as a parent, a better person as well.
It has been 2 days (today is day 2) of waking up at a particular time, breakfast AT THE TABLE same time every day, same goes with snacks, lunch and dinner. Organized & timed out TV time and play time, pretty much doing what teachers do, because guess what? as parents, we are teachers. we are everything. we are the teachers, the police man, the nurse, the cook, the cleaner, the cab driver, the receptionist, the office assistant, the parent. It will be hard, but I want to document it all. I want to see how much I have grown from day 2 to day 32. I want to document my experiences, my feelings, my bad days and my good days, as well as Davids. I want to document all of Heidi's bad days, and good days, & how this whole life change, will be life changing. Are you down to follow my journey?
It is REALLY EASY to get caught up in the lives of people on social media platforms. Thinking you have been doing wrong as a parent, when you see all these PERFECT kids, toddlers, families all over.
WHY? I have been screaming this from the top of my lungs for years ...
WHY DON'T PEOPLE SHOW THE BAD?
WHY DO PEOPLE GO THROUGH LIFE THINKING EVERYTHING IS PERFECT?
because guess what, no one is perfect. you can strive to be perfect, but no one is perfect. fight me on that.
In conclusion, at the end of the day, we are all growing, at mass speeds, life and god are throwing us curve balls we never even imagined, in all different shapes and forms. Being a human is hard, being a parent is hard, being is a relationship is hard. But, if you don't give up, keep doing the best that you can, bettering yourself and the people around you, everything you have planned and god has planned for us, is the way that its meant to be. Taking advice with grains of salt, and learning from other people, trying out new things, is what we should be striving to do.
Id like to hear your thoughts, im still trying to get used to the blog life, so sometimes my words are jumbled, like a puzzle, everywhere but eventually all the pieces will come together as one.
Xoxo,
MM
Oh honey. Don't beat yourself up - no one gives us a book for this stuff. It's been a hard year for you too, so no wonder the cracks are showing.
Kids DO need boundaries - it actually helps them feel safe.
You aren't a bad parent, just a human one.
My boy is 23 and it still suprises me he is alive and a wonderful human being. One day you'll look at her and marvel at that fact too!
You are right, as well - parents need to share. It sucks feeling as if you are alone.
You should try the #homedders community as well, lots of parents in there!
@minismallholding, I think you'll like this one too x
They call it terrible twos for a reason. 😉
I was always one for routines setting boundaries and diverting tantrums. With my first daughter I would nip bad behaviour in the bud, before it got worse, because I'd seen how it could only make things harder for myself down the line after watching my sister raise her boy on her own. Then number two came along and she was so much more placid and well behaved that when she fist started testing her boundaries I didn't respond, because I wasn't used to it with her. Thankfully I did realise and she responded well.
My eldest has recently had an ADHD diagnosis as an adult, which explains why she was such hard work, but apparently also why the boundaries and routine helped, so it never ended up being an issue for her as a child. We also ended up home schooling, which her psychiatrist has said was probably one of the best things I could have done for her.
The take home for me that all children are different and you can't judge yourself as a parent on the behavior of someone else's children. I’m sure boundaries and routine will help both of you, but renember that she is also her own unique person. Even my youngest is a fidget and would be doing head stands while I was reading to them, but always absorbed the story.
I hope your journey goes well.
Beautiful girl you have there but you are a beautiful momma so of course she would turn out that way.
Pandemic lockout sucks even on the caribbean where i live (Venezuela) we have a huge backyard yet our toddler (2 years old as yours) wants to go outside see new things he is tire of the same old backyard, what we try and do and suggest you do too if possible is have long bath times that way we pretend he is in a pool it helps caise he loves pools.
We have a communty for moms and dads call Motherhood where your beautiful and pretty real post would fit right in, this is the kind of content we seek real moms talking about their experience with hobesty to help other moms who may be going through the same. Im going to cross post it there ❤️ feel free to join in and be part of our daily and weekly challenges!
thanks for sharing, i think being there for your girl and loving her is the most important. You are doing a great job, setting boundries is good and you will kick butt!