I have never claimed to be a perfect mom. In fact, most nights I go to bed thinking, "Tomorrow, I am going to do _____ better. Be more loving, more patient, more creative, etc" I am sure a million mothers a night lay in bed thinking what they could do better, how they can help their little ones become more well adjusted, happier, able to deal better with their hurricane of emotions they experience over the course of one day.
I feel that I have grown a lot in the past 8 years as a mom. I started out just doing the best I could, just sort of "making it". Over the years, I have read, and learned, and figured out what works for me and us and our family. Basically I still do the best I can, try each day to love my kids, and always, without fail, go to bed with resolve to do better the next day, what else can I do?!
I have three kids, two of them are little, 1 and 3. One of those is a girl, the 3 year old. She likes to scream. No one told me about the sounds that can emit from a little girl, and how often. She screams ALL. THE. TIME. I swear she turned 1 and turned into a screamer. She screams if someone looks at her sideways.
This, also for the record, drives me bananas. Some days I probably deal with it better than others, and to give her credit, she is learning and growing and using words and not shrieks more. But still, its a process, and honestly I don't always react when she is screaming about something, especially if its a fit throwing moment, or something that really I don't want to waste my energy on, OR if I can feel that I am at my limit for patience that day, and I know that if I even open my mouth or walk over to her I may say or do something I will later regret.
ALL this to say, imagine to my horror when on Saturday our neighbor popped her head over the fence, around 1 o'clock in the afternoon, while I was out back doing something, and Addison was standing at the back door screaming bloody murder because she couldn't open the door. I was trying to get Addie to stop screaming and just ask for help, ya know, like a big girl, without losing my marbles and yelling at her. SO right in the middle of this, the neighbor pops up, and says "HI, um I am trying to take a nap over here, and well, I understand that it must be hard with...3 kids.... but the screaming is really starting to get old, and we live really close and it really echo's, so if you could please try to keep it quieter that would be great."
I. was. floored. I mean really?! REALLY?! Keep reading, it gets better,
Ok so moving on... SUNDAY afternoon. We had been gone most of the day at the beach, and when we got home we decided to grill out, the kids were outside playing, very nicely I might add. And something happened that scared Jude, and he started to cry, as Gordon was walking over to him to pick him up this yell comes from over the fence "Keep it down, this is REALLY getting old." Ok so I tell my husband to please go over there, and tell them to please stop telling us how to raise our children. To tell them that children scream and cry and yell and carry on. They are living in this thing called life, and its loud. Deal.
So Gordon goes to try and before she got around to slamming the door in his face, she said they are gong to call the police and Child Protective Services because they believe we are abusing our children. Their quality of life has declined since we moved in because of the "non-stop" screaming and crying, and we don't do anything to try and stop it, ever. It's going on from 6:30am-8:30pm and they have had enough. Que. Door slam.
Ok, what?! WHAT!??!?!?!? I sort of lost my mind for a minute. I started crying, I mean as a mom we truly deal with enough guilt about the job we are doing, and to actually have someone threaten to call CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES because you aren't attending to your child's every single whimper is too much. I mean really.
We called our landlord to tell him what was going on, and he told us that they were miserable people with nothing better to do than complain. Apparently they called the police when the guy who lives in the apartment in back moved in too, to complain about his moving truck being in front of their house, on the PUBLIC street. So he moved it to the alley in the back, they called police because it was sort of in front of their garage (which they don't use for their vehicles because they use the public street in front of the house). They called police to say the builders who were building the extension on this house were peeping toms, and were also being too loud.
So all in all I know its not ME or my parenting, BUT still, what nightmare.
