I am a black and white kind of person.  I need to know what the problem is, what the solution is and how to activate it.   I am simple.  If you tell me it is the right thing to do, it is.  And it is very hard to change my mind when I have learned a solution.

It worked well for me in school and in my professional life.

So you can imagine that parenthood has thrown me the inevitable curve ball.

I though it would be so easy.  I really did.  That as unprepared as I came into this raising of the offspring lifestyle, I could surely find an easy solution to everything I faced.  In fact, if I were really honest, I can admit that I – arrogantly – though I could do this better than anyone else.

I’ll wait while you all laugh until your sides hurt.

Still waiting….

Ahem – I get it ok?  You can stop now!

Parenting has become a complex theory for me.  A gray splotch that changes hourly to encompass whatever other issue I am unschooled in handling.  In fact, I dare say, the longer I parent, the more I realize that I have a loose grip on just about nothing.

In my pre-parenting days I thought, “What is so hard?”

Make a schedule, stick to it, never waver from what you say and – BAM – well rounded, perfectly behaved, loving and respectful children will magically be created.

If you keep laughing I’ll never get this post done!

*dabbing eyes of tears from my own belly laughter**

The reality of the situation is that schedules are great…  necessary in a multi kid household for sure – but have to have such wiggle room every day that they might as well be written on a melting Popsicle.  In July.  In Texas.

And what someone tells me will work with my kids probably will not.   Not because it did not work for theirs, but because mine are mine and a product of everything I have taught them so far.

So I find parenting to be quite complex.  Proven by the millions of books and sites and movies and shows and magazines and theories out there today. There is almost as much advice out there on how to raise your kids as there is on how to have them.

So, parenting has put me in the proverbial haystack, searching for that needle that may never be found.  And no matter how long I dig, how planned and organized I am in my search, or how many people I enlist to help me, I may never find that derned needle.

That is a reality that is hard for me to accept.  I need to have a goal that leads to a solution…  something easy for me to grab onto and go to in times of confusion.

But, I am learning, that this parenting thing can not be put in a box.  And it is full of complex theories for the simple mom.

And the longer I do it… the more unprepared I feel!