Life Parenting

Some Days Are Sour Milk

By Rachel E. Bledsoe of The Misfits of a Mountain Mama

Some days are sour milk.

I sent my child to daycare with no shoes on his feet. He went clothed, still in his night shirt. On this new day morning, not today’s morning but one morning last week, we fought. He screamed, “I don’t wanna.” I tried to reason.

Mistake #1. There is no reasoning.

He doesn’t have reasoning skills housed in his little body. He doesn’t want to wear pants. I tell him all the time, “No one actually wants to wear pants.” Unless they are sweet, elastic, oversized pajama pants. Good ice-cream-eating-and-cheesecake-indulging pants. I want to wear those pants for the rest of my life too, but adulthood says, “No, you have to be an adult and wear real pants or a skirt.” I sneak in a lot of leggings. Hahaha, suckers. Leggings are like a cross between real pants and pajama pants. Comfort, yet style. Please don’t ever let leggings go out of style.

On this particular morning, I fought to put underwear and athletic pants on my child. The morning tested every bit of patience and fortitude I have inside of me. I quit trying to reason after managing to put socks on his feet. When he left, I cried. Heaving, snotty-nose-breakdown-in-your-rocking-chair-and-feel-incredibly-crappy-about-your-parenting-skills kind of crying spells.

When my little family returned home for the day, I tried to talk with my husband. We needed to become the parental army dealing with the hostile takeover of the no-pants-wearing dictator. RISE UP! RESIST HIS DEMANDS. PARENTING REVOLUTION. I ended up crying, because I’m emotional and dramatic.

FAILURE. 

“We are failures. We can’t even dress our kid for daycare. We suck at this. We fail. We fail all the time. And it’s going to get to worse and we are going to fail big time. I’m so sad because we suck. We really suck at being parents.” 

Needless to say, you don’t want me around in a crisis situation. I freak out and cry and panic freeze and don’t resolve much. We gathered a new routine in the morning and allotted more time for catastrophic events like putting on pants and a clean shirt. We made other adjustments in parenting.

It should be noted I’m a pull-yourself-up-by-your-boot-straps kind of girl. When life kicks me in the face, I will first cry like a big baby, but I always get back up, stronger and more determined than ever. We’ve been getting our kid dressed and out the door on time and I started feeling pretty good about life again. I wanted to make a nice dinner to honor our success. Not really, we have to make dinner and feed our child.

In my efforts to become the BEST WIFE TO EVER LIVE, I made meatloaf, corn, mashed potatoes and homemade bread. It took like three hours to play on Facebook and listen to music and make dinner. I pulled the bread out of the oven and began mixing the potatoes. While adding the butter, salt, and milk, I immediately knew something didn’t look right.

FAILURE. 

“Taste these. They look funny,” I tell my husband. Because I made dinner, I should have a taste tester. He immediately spits out the mashed potatoes.

“They’re sour,” he states with a scrunched up face of disgust.

“No way. The milk doesn’t expire for another day or two.” Here is where the epic fail happens. I get a glass of milk. Because I’m a tough lady and no one is going to stop me from making delicious mashed potatoes.

Rotten. No good. Sour. Awful. Can’t get the taste out of my mouth quick enough. BAD MILK.

The mashed potatoes were thrown in the garbage. And the husband peeled new potatoes. I went to play with our son. We still had another jug of milk.

We started again and made another batch of non-sour mashed potatoes.

Some days are sour milk days. They are the days leaving a bad taste in your mouth, but perhaps you can just throw that day in the trash and start over. Be sure to keep a back-up jug of milk in your fridge, though. And wear comfy pants as often as possible.

This post was originally published on The Misfits of a Mountain Mama.

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About the Author

Rachel E. Bledsoe is an Appalachian mama and misfit. She writes about her adventures, heartaches, and details her life’s journey on the blog, The Misfits of a Mountain Mama. She also enjoys long walks on the beach, puppies, and Marie Antoinette biographies. Be sure to follow her by visiting The Misfits of a Mountain Mama’s Facebook page or join her on Twitter @MisfitMtMama.