Lessons in Extreme Parenting

It seems all parents have similar experiences, whether it be braving Costco on a Saturday or attempting the zoo during kid’s free admission day. But what makes it “extreme” are the unique little touches, like misplacing a child in Costco only to find them elbow deep in a 4.5 pound bag of chocolate chips or believing they are out of the "poo-splosion" phase only to become the parent with the pantless two-year-old at the monkey exhibit.

The formula goes like this:

It’s not enough that ______ but then ______ = extreme parenting.

If like me, math is not your strong suit, here are a couple of clarifying examples:

Jogging with the kids in the Burley is a lesson in patience and personal space, but what qualifies it as “extreme” is when your oldest declares she must use the potty immediately and then both children pop-a-squat, pants down on a hill of fire ants, 3 miles from home.

Your baby is snuggled sweetly in the front pack and it’s not enough that you are wearing them in 80 degree heat, but you are also nursing them like a bad-A African Tribes' woman, while playing a mean game of Simon Says with your toddler in hopes it will distract them enough to go poop in the potty.

As if it isn’t hard enough to have 3 or more kids, but in order to get them places, Moms are forced to drive an unsexy ginormous wagon that screams, “I am safely driving 5mph below the speed limit, with our half dozen kids safely harnessed in amongst 500 airbags, while watching a PBS educational program, so you and your Tesla need to go around us.” 

Doesn't get more extreme than Fit4Mom Davis' Stroller Strides--with three kids under 4 and a homemade MacGyvered triple Bob stroller 😃

It’s not enough that we have to load and unload the dishwasher 2-3 times a day, but what makes it extreme is when both your kids are doing laps around the kitchen island while you are attempting to put away the steak knives.

The lesson here is that in order to get through it, no longer let the surprises, surprise you. When you order the most delicious thing on the menu your children will absolutely eat 3/4th of it, leaving you with the gross kind of melon and a sad garnish. So whatever parenting adventure you are experiencing just count on it being hard, extremely.

Mommy Math

I intentionally married an engineer in the hopes of creating tiny humans with perfectly balanced brains, with my portion contributing to their English excellence and my husband providing all that boring math stuff. Nowhere in my job description as a Stay-at-Home Super Mom did I sign up for endless amounts of complex math problems; and yet somehow motherhood is riddled with word problems that look like this:

 If your child falls asleep in the car for longer than 3 minutes, they will

a.      take their regularly scheduled nap for its full allotted time

b.      take a shorter nap at another time

c.      count those 3 minutes as that day’s nap time and then proceed to be cranky for the total number of hours they should actually be napping.

The answer is c. Always c.

Here is a list of daily mommy equations (look at me using math terms!) that include but are not limited to: probability, fractions, and ratios; and just like mathematical proofs, these statements can always be proved true:

Equation #1: Other people will appoint themselves experts on your family equation—claiming to know the appropriate gender ratio and proper size. 2 girls? Oh, your husband must need a boy.

Clearly, my husband has everything he needs 😊

Equation #2: The healthier the food the longer you can stretch the 10-second rule. For example, if broccoli gets dropped on the ground, the 10-second rule stands. However, the opposite is true for unhealthy foods. When your child drops a cupcake on the playground—uh-oh, it’s garbage within 2 seconds. The inverse of this rule applies for adults: broccoli= garbage, cupcake=easily edible after 10-seconds and just pray for frosting side up.

Equation #3: No child shall start a nap after 3pm, or else their bedtime and your bedtime will overlap. You can roll the dice and skip nap time altogether in hopes of an early bedtime, but you may experience extreme whininess for the last two hours of the evening.

Equation #4: A messy activity is acceptable as long as the clean-up time required takes only 1/10th the amount of time your toddler gave you of blissful, uninterrupted, quiet time.

For example; pictured below is a friend’s daughter expressing her creativity by sticking women’s sanitary products around the house, including her baby sister (bonus time is given if both children are involved!). This looks like 30 minutes of harmless fun, for less than 3 minutes of clean up.

Just like Pythagorean’s theorem where a² + b² = c² our children are always in charge of the variables so no matter what we do, we're squared.

What's in Store

For some Moms, shopping is their cardio, for others it is the only place they can socialize with humans who won’t wipe snot on their yoga pants. For me, I genuinely have no desire to spend my precious child-free time in a grocery store, unless they are putting on some sort of free cheese sampling; nor do I want to bring them along to watch them meltdown when I say no to buying a "CONGRATULATIONS: IT'S A GIRL" balloon. I believe online shopping was invented for all hardworking parent and until there is a truly convenient store for parents, I will happily partake in Instacart, Blue Apron, DoorDash or any other genius, life-saving app millennials are out there making millions on inspired by our so-called laziness.

What would my ideal grocery store look like? So glad you asked…

Some sort of freshly brewed caffeinated beverage is handed to me upon entering the premises.

The kid’s shopping cart to adult shopping cart ratio is always 1:1 and each aisle is equipped with bumpers like in bowling, because who wants to pay for 42 broken bottles of ketchup?

There is a peaceful napping aisle where children can go and wrap up in bath towels so Mom and Dad can put things like cupcakes in their cart without creating a sugar frenzy.

No shirts, no shoes, no service never applies to my kiddos—in fact, there is a shoe bin next to the door because 20 minutes in, shoes will be flung about anyways.

Comments about how beautiful my children are as well as our impeccable fashion sense, are always appreciated—comments about “having my hands full” will get you this:

It is a judgement free zone, so toddler tantrums result in free ice cream…for their parents.

If and when everything goes to hell, there is a free childcare zone to deposit them, so for once I can actually read all the ingredients on the soup label without my daughter reminding me that she doesn't like soup and won’t eat it.

Lastly, there are no candy, snacks, or rainbow sparkly toys munchkin height, guaranteed to ruin what was a successful shopping trip, upon arriving at the checkout.

Until such a place exists or I've created it and made my millions, I will continue to refer to all grocery shopping experiences with my young children as a trip to the "inconvenience" store.