The Absurdity of Parenting

I have been struck this week at the absurdity of parenting.  What I mean by this statement is that things, situations, conversations, and events happen in my life as a parent that seem on the one hand absolutely normal and fitting, yet at the same time when giving a little time to think about are absurd.  This week has had a few rough spots. Andrew worked three nights out of five which means I got to put both kids to bed all by myself.  Usually this is not fun but not altogether awful either.  It just takes longer and if I'm tired (hahahahaha when I'm tired) it requires copious amounts of patience that I really don't posess naturally.  But this week was terrible, truly terrible.  Let me preface this by saying from the start that no one is sick and Hannah went to bed well.  So it could have been imaginably worse.

This is where absurdity entered my life and became one of my closest companions.  On Tuesday night (the first of my 3 nights) it took Ethan almost 3 hours to go to bed.  He is in the throws of his 18 month sleep regression and if you don't know what that is google it and you will find some interesting articles that explain it.  Basically, lots of children regress briefly at 18-20months, the cause is somewhat unknown but it is usually linked to a spike in linguistic development.  This was true of Hannah and also now true of Ethan.  I hope it is short.  Ethan is cutting a tooth this week and that alone adds some fun to the mix.  Back to my story.  In the middle of putting Ethan to bed, he threw up the entire 8oz contents of his bottle all over me and in order to spare my favorite chair the horrors I contained the entire mess on myself and my son. After, cleaning everything up, resetting Hannah's TV show back to the beginning (she was waiting on the couch watching Word World), and taking a much need 2 minute sanity break to check Facebook, I was able to get them both to bed.

Wednesday, I lived mostly in denial that Andrew was working again that evening and even up to 5 minutes before he left I had convinced myself that we could tag team bedtime.  Wednesday took 45minutes longer but was an otherwise near duplicate of the previous night.  I don't know why my son likes throwing up on me at bedtime.  Before you wonder much longer with thoughts like, "maybe he has the flu".  Let me assure you he does not.  He just does this from time to time.  BUT he ONLY does it at bedtime and he ONLY does on nights that Andrew is not home, and he ONLY throws up on me.  Hannah used to make herself throw up at bedtime, thankfully she has long outgrown it.  Fortunately, I had the foresight to change my clothes before being thrown up on Wednesday night.  As I prepared to put Ethan to bed.  I thought to myself you know what, I should change because I would really like to wear these pants to Bible Study in the morning and if Ethan throws up on me I will be out of luck.  I am glad I did.  But it is crazy to have needed to plan my wardrobe around bedtime.

Thursday, Andrew put both the kids to bed,  They were asleep by 8:10.  When he came down the stairs he was wearing the same shirt he wore all day.  Where is the fairness in that.

Tonight was a gong show.  I had the help of one of my two wonderful sisters.  It still took forever and I still got thrown up on.  For the record, I did bath the children before bed tonight.  Which is the ONLY thing I did NOT do on Tuesday and Wednesday, that is the only difference in routine that I can figure out.  Otherwise, I did things exactly the same.  While on one hand this whole craziness seems par for the course.  On the other hand it is crazy, laughable and in a word absurd.

Ethan, my darling son.  I love you but I implore to stop throwing up on me.