Christmas Diary, Day Two: Da ist die hölle los!

[muckefuck]

I stand by my assertion that anyone who's thinking of having children should spend at least an hour grocery shopping with two hyperactive preschoolers. My sister disagrees, saying that the experience "isn't representative" of being a parent. That's kind of the point; after all, a week's vacation with your sweetheart isn't representative of the whole relationship either.

Plan A was to take them to the zoo beforehand and wear them out a bit, but I threw a spanner in that when I went back to bed. I won't say I was tired, but I slept over ten hours, got up for less than two, and decided to go back to bed. As a result, we were trying to squeeze the trip into that critical window between lunchtime and naptime. We only got as much done as we did because I conned them into Feats of Strength with the frozen poultry while their mother dashed madly from one end of the store to the other. (If AWI ends up being the only child in his kindergarten class who can distinguish a cornish hen from a capon, it will be thanks to me.)

At least she and I got some quality time during the apparently unprecedented three-hour nap in the afternoon. She gave me some good encouragement to do the things I know I need but I've been putting off for too long. (Consider yourselves forewarned!) We made pizza for dinner (the chicken-and-spinach one for me and my sister was soon dubbed "Christmas pizza") and then packed the boys into strollers for a stroll to see the lights. I tried to liven things up with some impromptu caroling, but budding young critic AWI literally begged me to stop--although not before I learned an awesome new seasonal song.

Comments

[lhn.livejournal.com]

I stand by my assertion that anyone who's thinking of having children should spend at least an hour grocery shopping with two hyperactive preschoolers. My sister disagrees, saying that the experience "isn't representative" of being a parent. That's kind of the point; after all, a week's vacation with your sweetheart isn't representative of the whole relationship either.

The "should" may depend on one's goal. There are undertakings that would arguably be less than adequately supplied if the people involved always knew what they were getting into. :-) (Not that I've much interest in shopping with hyperactive preschoolers myself, to be sure.)

On the other hand, people do have more than one child, indicating that experience isn't always a deterrent. Or that hope can triumph over experience, I suppose. :-) (Some parents do seem surprised to discover that the truisms they thought they'd learned from the previous child[ren] turn out to be less universal than they'd imagined, but even that seems more likely with #2 than with #3 or above.)

[gopower.livejournal.com]

For that matter, childbirth itself is no picnic. Or so I'm told. I remember the look of horror on my sister's face when someone asked her a few weeks after the birth of her first how labor went -- "It hurt so much." But she went ahead and had another a few years later.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

True, but it's harder to sample in advance. (Though there is the analogy provided by--IIRC--Erma Bombeck: "Take your lower lip...and pull it over your head.")

[lhn.livejournal.com]

It's also typically at least a couple years in the past and at least the better part of a year in the future, and can thus be discounted. Whereas given the way many people space their children, the Terrible Twos (or Threes) are often Right Now.