Parenting Fails - Part II

To boost my GPA back in my University days, I took Linguistics which is the scientific study of language.  I'm positive the Latin root of the word "parenting" derives from the same etymology as "science experiment".  As a strong type A personality and convicted control freak, being a parent is equivalent to taking all my perfectly organized files of life (color coded, alphabetized and in chronological sequence with sub-folders), dumping them onto the ground into one hot mess, and then for added flare light it on fire while doing a happy dance around it wearing nothing but a loin cloth and a head dress.  I am an information collector.  This has been my go to skill to navigating the fifty shades of grey in life.  I read, and read, and then read some more, and when I think I got everything, read material in another language.  My self-directed studies in Parenting 101 has me at a Doctorate level with all the information that I acquired.  Now here's the kicker... very little of that information applies to my situation or my family!  In fact, it's so useless that I would say my studies in Statistics made more sense to me (which by the way I passionately failed twice and only barely passed on my third time by cheating).  The other go to life skill I use is "break all the rules" once I have mastered them.  Well obviously I haven't mastered parenting because my children haven't saved the world (yet), so by default due to lack of content, I have broken essentially all the rules.  So, I have re-written the code of conduct on the sacred art of Parenting.  Part of the sacred art of Parenting is never admitting you're bad at it.  Well, I'm coming out of the closet because I want Steph to know that she has very low standards to meet which means our screwed up families should blend beautifully together when her wee ones are walking this Earth.  I find that the root of heartache is having expectations so if I just blow these out of the water for her, she will continue to be her happy go lucky self, even as a mom.  Here is a continuation of my Parenting fails:

12.  You might as well name the second child as the "Forgotten One."  Unlike Tai, Kaiya doesn't actually photographically exist.  If you walked into my home, you will see beautiful pictures of Tai, adoringly captured and beautifully framed at every milestone in his life.  Try finding a picture of Kaiya and you'll be looking until the cows come home.  In fact, Penny our shih tzu has a photo on our bookshelf and even my best friend's kids, Jaiden and Vanessa has a space on our fridge amongst all the school newsletters and kid art.  Sad, I know.  It's not like I haven't taken any photos of her, I have... mind you only at about at 25% of the volume of Tai's.  It's just that we haven't had time to print and frame one.  The second child is like the Bermuda Triangle.  You have less time, you are more confident in your ability of not killing your babies (perhaps this is a false confidence albeit it still there) so somewhere in that equation weird things happen to the second child.  They tend to be crazier because you are more relaxed about things like letting them eat dirt or during your pregnancy you drank coffee and ate sushi.  You learn that you don't always have to change that wet diaper right away because the advertising print on the Huggies packaging says it can stay dry up to 10 hours.  I mean, the marketers always tell the truth right?  You dress the second child in hand me downs and it doesn't bother you that the pants are cameo and the top is actually a dress meant for an Easter formal dinner.  As long she is not indecently exposing her parts, she'll be fine.  It builds character and puts hair on your chest.

13.  Kaiya-The-Forgotten-One is consistently an exceptionally dirty kid.  It's a good thing my own mother is not reading this because this one will bring great shame to the Asian family... like the whole nine yards of shame.  Like the little red dragon explains on Disney's Mulan, "dishonor on you, dishonor on your cow"... EVERYTHING!  You can have a million screwed up variables but the Asian child shall never look like a dirty white kid.  When you meet Kaiya, on her good days you can tell what she ate because it's still on her clothes.  She will have a boogery, crusty mustache, her hair is all wildly tangled and her hands has permanent marker on it mixed with some dirt.  On her bad days, everything remains the same except she has no clothes on.  This chick is a dirt magnet.  Dress her like a princess and in three seconds flat she'll manage to look like an orphan.  I just gave up on chasing her with Lysol wipes.  With the time saved, I do mounds and mounds of laundry.

14.  Our freezer is packed with frozen mini pepperoni pizzas, fries, chicken nuggets and popsicles.  Dinner time is always a battle.  Trying to shove nutrients down Tai's throat is like watching a monk meditate.  It's heart wrenchingly painful.  One night, out of sheer insanity I made him sit there until he was finished his plate.  We started at 6:00P and at 10:00P I threw in the towel and sent him to bed hungry.  Chris does all the cooking in our family and on most days he has to make two separate meals, one for us and one for the kids just to make sure they eat.  If he doesn't, we pay the price with a night of crying, whining and Tai using his ninja skills to offload whatever he doesn't like eating either to the dog, or into garbage or the toilet when we're not looking.  If Chris is not home and I'm responsible for cooking, I consider instant noodles a healthy food group because like it or not, that MSG has kept us Asians looking suspiciously younger than most of our global counterparts.

15.  Birthdays are a non-event.  I hate entertaining groups of people.  My mother in law is fabulous at it.  I suspect she has a team of magical gnomes stashed away some where because at all her family parties her house is immaculate, her food is Top Chef grade and prepared by her, the fine china is well presented, the wine is always flowing, she looks beautiful, the conversations keep mingling and everyone is having a grand old time.  I just can't pull off that shit.  My level of expertise is grilling hot dogs on the BBQ, you help yourself to the bin of booze or stay thirsty, there may or may not be enough toilet paper in the bathroom, instead of an ice sculpture there is a large garbage can placed strategically for all to see so you can dispose your own paper plates and if you can't find a friend amongst the crowd to strike up a conversation then go hang out all awkwardly by yourself in the corner.  I'll be frantically grabbing all the half empty cans of pop and booze before Kaiya gets a hold of it.  Now I understand why my parents never celebrated our birthdays as it's a load of time, boat loads of money and more stressful than preparing taxes.  Yes one day this Mama will pull the immigrant card handed down from my parents and say... Nammer people don't celebrate birthdays because white people are weird.

16.  I love hand-me downs.  It's like my version of couponing.  The funny thing is that when Tai was born, it never occurred to me that with the onset of every season, I need to buy him a brand new wardrobe because he outgrew everything so quickly.  I made the rookie mistake of spending a lot of money on his clothes in the first year and then realized that the brand names are for my own ego.  Now, my girlfriend Khanh gives me her kid's hand me downs and with my mother in law's shopping addiction, I don't spend that much on their wardrobe.  The money I saved, I spend on things like a second iPad so they don't fight.

17.  On long car rides, Kaiya may or may not be safely in her car seat.  It's either that or I throw myself out the door because throwing her out the door might land me in jail.

18.  Sometimes a well placed, strategically smack on the robust buttocks of Miss Kaiya-The-Forgotten/Stubborn-One will save years of her being enrolled in rehab.  Yes, when she gets really out of hand and is stubborn enough to endanger her life, I will smack her and I won't care who's looking.  Bring your judge on, but of all my parenting faults one thing I have a strong conviction on is that my children will not be a burden to society when they are older.  Even if I have to beat them down, they will always respect others and respect themselves.

19.  If potty training doesn't come naturally, I won't push the issue.  I have yet to see an adult walk around in diapers (unless for medical issues) so I figured everything that parents freak out about like walking, talking, eating, peeing in the toilet and growing teeth and hair will come when it comes.  Some parents wear their mad potty training skills like a war scar.  I would rather spend the time blogging about my mad parenting skills.

20.   I don't attend pilates or yoga or meet up with other mommy groups and spend hours infatuated with being a "Yummy Mummy".  I negatively connotate this term like an expired "hipster".  The "Yummy Mummy" and "Martha Stewarts" of the world spend hours on Pinterest to create that perfect costume, or stay up until 3AM baking those on trend cake pops for fundraising or volunteer 28 hours in a day to eradicate the world of harmful BPAs in plastics.  I don't effortlessly waltz to school every morning with hair and make-up fully on, in heeled boots, pushing the adorable baby that is wearing a mini version of your fabulous outfit in a Bugaboo stroller with a Starbucks in hand, your latest iPhone in the other and having your school kid dressed like he's attending a private academy marching all disciplined beside your Filipino nanny.  I prefer sleeping in until the last possible second, rolling to school wearing whatever was on the floor the night before and Tai may or may not be wearing jeans with holes in the knees.  I usually yell at him for being so slow, he usually tells me things like how Daddy taught him how to kill zombies and we both have bags under our eyes because Kaiya kept us both up all night with her usual charming self. 

Steph, I know you will be in your element because unlike me, you aren't into yourself.  Your personality is preset to Parenting perfection because you find moments like playing board games fun (I get ansty because I am literally "bored").  You enjoy slowing down to point out the the little caterpillar that has blended in with the leaf and you go with the flow.  Like everything that is hard in life, I know that my kids will be my proudest achievements because they continually challenge every aspect of my life.  In the meantime, I'll be hiding in the bathroom reading the new bestselling book on "The Spirited Child" while Kaiya runs around all frantic and screaming, playing with razor blades and practicing her Van Gogh skills with a permanent marker on Daddy's 54" new TV.