Play Place PTSD

I consider our town a relatively small one (I said relatively, Ryan), and therefore, our entertainment options are limited. Especially for kids. There's the kid casino with a rat for a mascot (eww), or 3 fast food options with play places; 2 of which I refuse to support because of their anti-LGBT stance. The third, I refuse to eat at because their food is so gross that I can't even think about it without shuttering. 

So in winter in the frozen tundra where we reside, we don't have many chances to run off toddler energy outside of the house. By nature, I am a homebody and I'm really my happiest when I don't have to leave the comforts of my house. However, even I have my limits. 

Between the dreary weather, crippling pregnancy sickness, and the alley behind our home being an icy death trap for compact cars like mine, I realized today that except for a family outing last Friday, Clark and I haven't been out of the house in ten days. Because of this (and a coupon...which makes me feel even dirtier), I caved. Hard. 

I bundled us up, we braved the skating rink that is our parking lot, I prayed for the entire length of my alley that another car wouldn't appear and that I could keep our speed high enough to not get stuck, and as we made it to the freedom of a plowed and treated street, I compromised my morals. We drove to a fast food parking lot so crowded that I had to circle three times before finding a spot. 

We managed to make the trek inside, order, and miraculously found a seat. As our food arrived, Clark caught a glimpse of the play place and couldn't even concentrate on a selfie, which was mostly just to prove to the world that I was dressed WITH makeup on and out of the house - quite a feat when I've spent the majority of the last 2 weeks cleaning toilets while getting sick into them!

While I can't name the scene of the crime, I can tell you that thanks to my husband, our four year old can rap every word of a Kanye song about said establishment. I know this because between every bite, our child loudly recited it. So proud. 

After his lunch was eaten, Clark made it to the promised land: the play place. Y'all, I was not prepared for what awaited me in there. 

For starters, they somehow managed to pack 800 children into 20 square feet of plastic play space. Yet somehow, I was one of two parents present. Was there some sort of drop off system that I missed where I can pay extra and leave? Because I would definitely pay more for that! I considered the odds of it being a Duggar situation and all of those children really belonging to one family, but there was so. much. screaming! I've seen the Duggars - they have some serious issues, but those kids are in line!

Looking around, I realized that parents much smarter than I were out in the restaurant area, peacefully eating their meal while their kids competed in the toddler hunger games. Only instead of winning riches, the victor gets to bathe in hand sanitizer and maybe avoid an antibiotic resistant strain of strep throat. May the odds be ever in your favor, Clarkie! 

As he happily clamored through the plastic petri dish and more parents dropped off their children, I noticed that literally each of them had 3 or more kids with them. And the parents were all at least 10 years younger than me. How do all of these 17 year olds (don't do the math, just trust me on this one) have 3+ children?! And why are they all screaming and trying to climb up the slide? And how are all the parents so nonchalant and calm when it's an underground preschool fight club in here?

Parenting is hard, and I try my very best to not judge other parents, but after what I survived today, that's a difficult task. These kids need less sugar, more Jesus, and a uniformed correctional officer with a taser!

Diary of a SAHM: Week 1

I have officially been a stay-at-home parent for 8 days, and so far, everyone is surviving, which is priority #1. So, I'm rocking it. 

Clark has been great, but Cletus the Fetus #2 has been a typical 2nd child and has caused me to spend roughly 83% of my time at home puking my pregnant brains out. Glamorous, I know. But, I can now confirm my previous hunch that being sick and miserable at home in my pjs has been significantly better than doing so in business attire in front of my coworkers. And while it's definitely a gamble, pregnancy seems to be a pretty effective weight loss program for me, so there's a pretty silver lining!

I've had big, fun plans for Clark and I for several weeks now, and little to none of those have been accomplished so far. That has been tough for this planner of a mom to handle, but Clark has been an absolute trooper. That kid has laid next to me on the couch and watched more movies than I care to count, all without a single complaint. I have worried about how I will divide my attention between 2 kids, but didn't expect that struggle to happen quite so soon, or for it to be this unbalanced. There have been more than a few tears shed at the realization that I'm not the mom I want to be right now, because I'm often too sick to offer anything beyond basic care. 

While we haven't had any big adventures or checked anything off my to do list, we have managed to play, I'm guessing, about 52 games of Trouble. We don't keep official score, but if we did, my record would be around 3 - 49. We have also kept the dishes from completely overflowing (if Grandma is reading this, send dishwasher tablets, please!!!), the floors (mostly) swept, and while Daddy has still had to eat a few ham sandwiches for dinner, he's also been fed more homemade meals than usual. Even if literally 95% of this has been achieved in our pajamas, I still call it a win. Also, we're saving the environment by producing less laundry, so you could call us world conservation heroes. 

Today, despite day #4 in a row of feeling like death, I decided Clark had earned a little cheat to our schedule and chose to be the fun mom and make s'mores as our afternoon snack instead of our usual fruit or yogurt. 

Look at that chocolatey smile! Worth every empty calorie, crumb left to clean, and the impromptu sink bath that followed. No photo of me, mostly to protect my pride, as I looked like I had been attacked by an angry mob of chocolate chips and marshmallows. Hey - the "baby" needed those two, err, number to remain unmentioned s'mores! 

The stacked boxes of baby things that need to be gone through and the cleaning and the getting-dressed-by-noon-and-actually-leaving-the-house will get done 

eventually. This new gig has been brief, but it has already taught me that some days, success isn't measured by productivity. That's new for me, but I think I'm getting the hang of it. :)