It's impossible to get anything done and remain calm with kids

We’ve spent just about the last 400 days with our kids non-stop, with maybe two total nights away from them since the beginning of the COVID pandemic. A large chunk of that last summer was with them home while we tried to work while their daycare was closed. We’re incredibly lucky that daycare has remained open since then, and stayed very safe, but it’s still a tremendous amount of time to spend with two soon to be five years olds with boundless energy and trouble expressing their emotions while also dealing with a one year old who likes to get into and explore everything. As we moved into our new house, our little list of things to get done around the house exploded, and it’s been impossible to feel like we’re making progress without also losing it at the kids for needing so much of our attention.

We moved to a great neighborhood on a dead end street that means the boys can ride their bicycles, battery powered cars, scooters, roller blades, and all the other toys they can find, all in the course of about ten minutes right in the street in front of the house. In the future this might mean we can sit on our porch and relax while watching them, but for now, it means days where I try to get things done outside while they play. Unfortunately, they need to switch toys every five to ten minutes or get frustrated with something, or otherwise need help constantly. This means every time I start getting something done, they interrupt me and I have to start over again after helping them. Combined with tantrums in the middle of the street and not listening to a single word we tell them, it means our patience is low and many days end with yelling and getting dragged back inside.

I thought a new house would mean less to take care of, but the little things like putting up shelves, assembling a shed, installing a screen door, and planting flowers quickly add up to very busy nights and weekends. I feel like every single weekend I start off planning to accomplish two or three of these things. What actually happens is that I get midway in one while the boys play before getting interrupted with a fight about who can go first in their bike race or needing to help get unstuck, or helping them change into and out of roller skates for the tenth time. Time after time this comes as I’m holding up an 8 foot screen door, or the roof of the shed, or holding up two pieces of metal shelves. Each time I have to stop or risk an explosion of frustration. This means things take three times longer than they should and my frustration builds throughout the day.

I’ve got the kind of personality that needs things to get done. I can’t leave a project half complete over night or even in the middle of a day. I like the feeling of being able to cross something off the list and know it’s done and I don’t have to think about it anymore. I wasn’t able to finish putting together the screen door last night because of the kids, and it’s currently just sitting in my mind distracting me even while I write this. The interruptions from the kids go from patience to frustration to outright resentment and anger fairly quickly. After a great week together with the boys where it feels like we have a perfect relationship, the weekends tend to reset everything as there’s nearly a guarantee we’ll have a meltdown by the end of Sunday night.

According to parenting books and blogs, teaching kids how to process and deal with their feelings is one of, if not the biggest challenge in parenting. That can certainly be true if you consider the wide range of emotions from frustration to anger to sadness. It feels like a huge part of parenting at this age is just monitoring how kids are behaving and helping to nudge them in a positive way rather than a meltdown when something doesn’t go their way. But in order to monitor like that, it means constant vigilance and not getting anything else done. It’s completely impossible to monitor the situation and react when you’re in the middle of some project. This results in the little frustration points which are otherwise easy to steer away from like getting mad about a bike getting stuck on a bump in the street or mad at each other for not racing the way the other one wants, build up and turn into huge fights that need to be diffused before being able to get back to work. It creates a vicious cycle of getting mad for not having time to get things done which results in even less time.

There’s no solution to this that I’ve been able to find. I wish daycare was open on the weekends so that I could get chores done. I wish I didn’t have chores to do so I could just enjoy time with the kids I know I’ll regret not taking when they are grown up or even when they’re older and don’t want to spend time with us. I wish I was more patient and could just accept that not every task will be done quickly and in the same day. But right now all of these are just wishes and I haven’t found an actual solution. I think, like many things in parenthood, there is no one size fits all solution, and instead all we can do is try to be a little bit better each day with it. It’s likely that things will go one step forward, one step back over time, but even a few days of less stressful work and interaction with the kids would be a welcome change.

I’m sure this is a common feeling for parents, but the pandemic has absolutely exacerbated it. The sheer amount of time together and the lack of any breaks means patience is thin and everyone could use a break to reset. But even with vaccination rates climbing and the majority of the country now vaccinated, kids are a risk as is travel, so it looks like we’ll still be cooped up together for a while. Instead of fighting and standing in the way of each others’ plans, we need to find ways to achieve our goals together, whether that’s getting some housework done or conducting a bike race in the street. Otherwise I’ll probably end up throwing a shed door into the woods which isn’t exactly a thing I need my kids emulating.