Tag Archives: parenting fail

A Study in Disappointment

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Shannon| Leave a comment

The disappointment around here comes in frequent and heavy bursts. My daughter does not know why we limit her so, given her clear preference to have all things upon request. Do we not understand her pointing her index finger so sharply at the TV? Do we not register the stern “mmmmm!” sounds escalating to the furious “MMMMMM!!!!!” sounds that issue forth from her little mouth? Is this most primal of communication over our heads? Should she be forced to learn how to do everything herself? How then shall she attain sufficient height to reach Those Things That Were Placed Out of Reach for a Reason?

She wants to play with the camera. She wants to eat “Hello Panda” for every meal. She wants to dump her beverages on the floor so that she may point to the spill and then, aid us in the critical mission to clean it up. She wants my laptop to link her to entertaining people via video chat instantaneously. She wants to nurse whenever it crosses her mind. She wants to kiss the cat. She wants to read this book, no this one, no that one. She wants to be pushed in her cart. She wants both of us to get up and dance. She wants my phone. Oh, god she wants my phone. She wants to look at pictures of leopards in the May edition of “Vogue” and WHY ARE THERE ONLY THREE? THERE SHOULD BE MORE LEOPARDS IN THIS LEOPARD CATALOG.

But most of all, she wants to watch videos on TV.

It starts early in the morning with refusal to eat breakfast if someone doesn’t turn on something. We appease her by putting music on through the Apple TV, so there’s sound and a screen saver slide show of my husband’s flicker photo-feed. By mid-afternoon she has usually had one or two minor fits about the lack of quality programming. And at dinnertime, she will also refuse to eat and point mercilessly at the TV making whining sounds.

Oh the pointing.

And if you try to explain WHY she can’t do a particular thing right now, you get the index finger of “just one minute” or “shut up,” whichever seems to fit best at that moment. The best you can do is to distract, distract, distract. You just come up with random things and hope that something else will temporarily exceed her laser-focus on her current fixation.

Yesterday, she was sitting next to me on the sofa having a moment because I wouldn’t let her press random buttons on the camera. I was therefore able to capture this brief sequence that I call:

“A Study in Disappointment and Distraction”

Realization


Aghast


Bemusement


Judgement


Resignation

And here’s one last picture of the cat looking smug:

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Last Night: An exercise in fail

Posted on December 12, 2011 by Shannon| Leave a comment

Last night was the kind of night where you completely accept that you are unqualified to have children.

Two forces collided to form a hurricane of misery: my toddler decided that she was going to refuse to settle for sleeping alone and without her claws on me and I lost my freaking patience/mind/ability to stop grinding my teeth.

She just had to be physically on my person while she slept and would not be set down in her crib. She woke up a few times before 2am, but at 2:30, she became impossible to set down. I’d get her back to sleep and as soon as I set her down, she’d wake up and cry. We did this about 15 times. At about 3:30, I finally took her to my bed (I had not gone to bed myself yet), but I couldn’t fall asleep with her flopping all over me and bumping my almost-broken nose. So when she finally fell back asleep, I decided to remove the temptation for her to nurse constantly and I went out and tried to sleep on the sofa. I was so uncomfortable. At 4:30 I went back to bed and she woke up. I tried again to put her back in her crib once she was asleep again.

When she wouldn’t stay asleep there, after multiple attempts, I snapped. She was getting really upset. I was more upset. I stepped out of the room with her still in her crib, crying. She totally lost it. It was awful. Ugly. A million levels of terrible. The 6th level of Hell.

I tried to console her without picking her up. No use. After several more attempts to get her to calm down, I just gave in and let her come back to bed with me. She fell asleep clinging to me like it was the end of the world. I felt horrible, she was terrified, the cat was like, “will someone feed me now?”

We all slept in, such was the trauma of the whole ordeal. It kind of made feel today like a bit of a waste. I got nothing done. I messed up the first pancake so bad that I had to wash the pan and start over. Things were not going well.

Crossing my fingers for a better night tonight. The cat is like “you can feed me with crossed fingers, no?”

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Family photo fail

Posted on November 7, 2011 by Shannon| 1 Comment

When my darling baby was just a wee newborn, I attempted to take some photos of the three of us (myself, my husband, and her). We got dressed, got out the tripod, set up the timer on our camera, sat on the sofa, and tried to look like we weren’t as stressed about this as we really were.

It didn’t work.

The resulting photos were a disaster; one person is looking away, the baby’s dress is completely bunched up, one person is in focus and the others are not, someone blinks, the baby moved, and so on. Within just a few minutes of trying to get one decent picture, the baby decided she’d had enough and there was no getting her good mood back.

We called a professional. She came to our apartment for 3 hours. She was delightful, so talented, and we promptly received a huge batch of gorgeous photos. It made sense, we needed a family photo while our baby was still tiny and since we hadn’t paid for any other photos since our wedding, it seemed like a reasonable expense even though it was expensive.

That was just over a year ago.

I decided about a month ago that we needed a new “family photo” for our holiday cards. I thought to myself, the baby is older, she likes to smile, we can go outside (the cold not being as problematic for a 14 month old as it is for a 3 month old), and this will totally work! This time it will work!!

I must truly be a masochist because HOW could I forget that my toddler never stops moving? How could I forget that even when I want to take pictures of her myself, I have to wait, patiently, for just the right moment and then snap 30 times quickly? I would like to tell you that I’m capable of learning from my mistakes, but apparently I’m not.

We started out with getting everyone fed, dressed, and set out for the park. My daughter was in an excellent mood. When we got there, she quickly transitioned from happy to obsessed with roaming about and picking things up off the ground. My husband forgot the thingamajig that connects the camera to the tripod (he claims this is my fault because it WAS on the camera). So after he ran home to get it, failed to find it, and returned, my daughter was in NO mood to sit still for a picture. She was, however, in the mood to throw cheerios out of her cup onto the ground.

We did the best we could. We have a small tripod that attaches to the camera without the whichamacallit and then can be gripped onto a bench or post. We used that. We took some quick photos. My daughter squirmed and whined. We eventually set her free to go play on the slide. I took some cute photos of her, small consolation as I have a MILLION OF THOSE.

I have learned my lesson. Next year, I will find someone else to take these pictures. If I cannot afford the fine skills of a professional, I will at least recruit a willing friend. There may be some people out there that can set up a shot, scramble to their spot, and pose themselves and their very collected child. I would like to be friends with these people so I can figure out what sacrifices they’ve made to which various gods.

Anyway, my husband did manage to get a few nice pictures of me and the toddler, in her more docile moments, so it wasn’t a complete waste of makeup.

You may take my picture while I swing, but I will not be in focus. Suckers.

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