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parenthood is a rollercoaster

Saturday

I have a tendency to stop myself from writing posts simply because of my Inner Critic, who says “does anyone really want to read about that topic?” or “I think it’s been said already, and better. Stick to fiction.”

I should at least be grateful on some level that my Inner Critic, who’s half a jerk, at least thinks I write decent fiction. But sometimes he needs to shut up.

So I’m not going to worry about it this morning, and I don’t even know what this post is ultimately going to be about. It’s Saturday and the kids are at the table drawing things out on paper with a pile of crayons on the table. No, scratch that: I just noticed the pile is now an organized line of crayons, rainbow-ish. Not a rainbow, because they’re neither the rain, nor shaped like a bow. But there it is: a beautiful lineup of colors that begins with the reds on one side and turn into the blues before moving on to everything else.

They are getting along, which is a blessing anytime it happens. I’d like to say it’s like that most of the time, but we aren’t there yet. This is the new normal: Three amazing and sometimes irritating kids, that we love, with a plentiful dose of sibling rivalry, who sometimes all get along at the same time, but not usually. More often, one is annoyed with another, or two are fed up with the third. You either know how it is from direct experience with kids or you’ve seen a movie with three kids in it.

When those rare moments of free time coincide with three kids cooperating with each other nicely, you must revel in the peace and contentment that comes down on you like gentle little snowflakes. I don’t know why I said it that way. That’s alright. Peace = snowflakes = behaving children. Any time I don’t feel compelled to throw a video in the DVD player as a last resort to keeping them calm is a good day.

I got interrupted just now while writing this post, but for good reason. Ladybug came over with what she had been working on: a card for me. Here, I’ll post it since I find it charming.

ladybugart
“Congrats, vegan that doesn’t eat sugar!”

It’s sweet, really. Not actually accurate, but sweet. Probably comes across as a random kind of card, but the reason for the card is that she’s responding to the fact that I made pancakes and didn’t eat any pancakes myself. Monkey asked for pancakes this morning and I decided I was willing to make it for the three of them. They wondered why I wasn’t having any, but Ladybug remembered that I’ve been working on improving my lifestyle by switching to a plant-based diet.

The distinction between a vegan diet and a plant-based diet has been written about in detail elsewhere and in far better ways than I’m in the mood to do. I’m determined to ramble here, after all, aren’t I? I’ll just clarify that I committed to no sugar and no dairy or eggs this year except for holidays. I’m not calling it vegan because I haven’t committed to dropping the occasional seafood (though every other kind of meat has been a thing of the past for decades) and you can be a vegan and eat absolutely terrible. Oreos and Nutter butters are vegan. Taco Bell bean burritos are vegan. McDonald’s french fries are vegan.* The list of junk foods that are vegan are far longer than the list of healthy foods that are vegan. So, even though I have been vegan in the past, I still ate plenty of that stuff.

Plant-based diet, to me, means I’m focusing on whole foods, with some processed foods. Avoiding white flour. Banning sugar from daily use. So I’m not a vegan. And the pancakes COULD have been made vegan if I hadn’t used a copious amount of butter, which I did.

I currently have an exception that I haven’t taken advantage of yet: birthdays and holidays are free to have whatever I’d like to have. We’ll see. I’m hesitant to allow it, because I want to be healthy and it occurred to me that an attachment to any food in particular is like a sense of loyalty to the food. WHY be loyal to a food that hasn’t done anything good for you?

So she gave me the card because she appreciates my resolve, which is sweet. I’ll type what the card says: “Dear Daddy, You should be very proud of yourself. Because it must be so very hard not to eat so many yummy things. I am very proud of you, congrats! You have a lot of will power.”

Sweet. Also inaccurate, since I DO eat yummy things. Learned how to make a tofu scramble the other day and that was fantastic with a pile of roasted red potatoes and spinach. But yes, will power comes into the picture sometimes. Friday nights are pizza night. Last week I made a dairy-free pizza for myself, but last night I felt lazy and picked up sushi. I figured I’d enjoy the sushi since it’s one of my favorite meals, but I didn’t. The scent of mouth-watering pizza was intoxicating. The sushi just didn’t cut it. Took massive will power (or WON’T! power) to resist eating a slice of cheesy goodness last night. Lesson learned: next time, just make the dairy-free pizza even if I feel lazy.

This post is about done, and the kids have moved on to Legos, still getting along. We have the day ahead of us, with a movie out on the agenda. Going to see Strange Magic. Wish me luck: I haven’t yet had the experience of taking all three kids to a movie without my wife, who’s currently in an all-day planning-for-the-future meeting for our Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.

It might end up feeling like herding chipmunks.

Edited to Add: (And honestly, although it does strike me as funny, I could not resist clarifying the last sentence.) The movie trip might feel like herding chipmunks, not the planning meeting. But you never really know, do you?

*Seems I was wrong about this. Read a few years ago that they had made them vegan, but apparently not. Shows how tricky it can be to keep track.

By J. Parrish Lewis

J. Parrish Lewis was born and raised in Maryland. In his youth there, he and his brother had many adventures in the dogwood forests near his home. His nostalgia for these adventures has strongly influenced his characters, their relationships, and their perspective on the world they inhabit. He moved to California’s coast to earn his degree in communications and now lives with his family in the San Joaquin Valley. Lewis is profoundly deaf and uses American Sign Language to communicate. He enjoys hazelnut coffee, captioned movies, and walking his dog.

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