Today sort of sucks. I’ve had people ask me what I find hardest in being a stay-at-home mom, and I always tell them that it depends on the day. Also, it’s worth it. Any given day it’s totally worth it.

Only, maybe not today.

Ben’s been sick with a stomach virus for a week now and I’m at the end of my “oh poor little boy is suffering and that’s why he’s so cranky” rope. I’m not being mean or anything (well, unless you ask him, there’s a whole “cookie” incident that we won’t get into), but he’s on his third episode of Sesame Street. I SWEAR we usually watch about 4 hours a week, and I try to keep it under that. Yes, I DO believe that television is the devil, if only just because of how it makes me feel when I’ve watched more than a little of it. And, yes, I do believe it contributes to bad behavior, and, no, you aren’t going to convince me otherwise. And, no, I don’t REALLY believe you’re a bad parent if your toddler watches more TV than mine. But I feel like a bad parent. I feel like a lazy parent who can’t find something else to do.

But I’m not beating myself up about it today, because, you know what? I’ve had it. Yesterday Ben had NO urine for about 7 hours. And when I told the doc she told us that we needed to up the fluids (oh my god as if I hadn’t been pushing Pedialyte every second of the day and following him around with a sippy cup of juice!) and that we needed to stay out of the heat. She’d mentioned keeping Ben “comfortable” when we saw her last Friday, but hadn’t really said no to being outdoors. Live and learn I guess. Anyway. Those Mighty Mini popsicles? A GODSEND. Woke up dreading checking Ben’s diaper (no pee tonight would have meant a trip to the ER) only to find his sheets drenched. Hooray! Yes, I was cheering over yet another load of laundry.

This is a bad, complain-y post. But I have a point. Seriously. I think.

This week has been without the park, which is much harder than I ever would have thought. It’s contained my being sick with the same bug Ben has (oh, and, hey, I’m 13-or-so weeks pregnant so that’s added to the wonder!), fears of an upcoming flight (I HATE flying. I’m not AFRAID of flying. I HATE it.), missing out on two really, really, really exciting events, one including a friend I haven’t seen in YEARS.

And so I’m feeling a little sorry for myself. I’m feeling a little blue. And then Ben comes and snuggles next to me on the floor and we pick up How Do Dinosaurs Say I Love You? which we’re borrowing from the library, and I remember that this will end. He pulls down the neck of my shirt so he can place his ear against my bare skin and hear my heart beat. And it’s a little better. It still really sucks. But it’s worth it again.

Somedays I hate the playground. Most frustratingly, I tend to hate the playground the worst on the days Ben loves it the best—those with the most kids.

Sand in my jeans, sand in my house, the possibility of falling off the ladder or running into a swinging child, the sometimes sharp toys brought by kids, the food I forgot to bring (oh, but how nice that everyone shared today), eating the wood chips, falling off the bench, trying to climb the fence and splitting open a chin, having to make small talk with some of the more intimidating moms and nannies. All these things are worth the fun we normally have.

But there’s one thing that makes my heart race. It’s going to sound ridiculous, and it’s not what you think. But I hate when a mom goes to sit or stand right next to her kid when he or she is playing with Ben.

I tend to hang back. I don’t think Ben needs my constant presence, and I like him being able to interact with other kids without me, able to solve his own smaller problems. And if another kid takes a toy Ben’s playing with he’ll usually either grab another to play with, try to take it back, or come to me. I’ll step in if there’s a problem: a crying kid, any sort of hitting. I leave it alone otherwise.

But we’ve had problems with other moms stepping in too early and causing a problem. The worst was over an airplane. A really, really cool airplane. A boy brought it and was playing with it in the sandbox. Because his mom was right on top of him I decided to sit near them on the sandbox rim. Ben asked very nicely (signing and speaking his little “pEEAse!”) and was told by the mom that he could use it when her son was done. He sat waiting and watching the kid play with airplane for a good 5 or 6 minutes. Then the kid put it to the side and started digging in the sand. Ben took the toy and was having a great time making airplane noises and playing gently. The other mom got off the phone and saw him, I had made a phone call so I wasn’t paying that much attention, but I heard her ask her kid if he wanted his airplane back. And then took it from Ben and handed it over. Ben was FURIOUS! And who could blame him? He did exactly what he was told to do, waited patiently, and wasn’t hurting anyone. All that work and someone changed the rules.

I almost decked her. How could she be such a flaming asshat? Her kid hadn’t even seemed to notice. And Ben hadn’t run off with it or anything; they were playing right next to each other.

I tried interesting Ben in something else, I tried getting him onto the slide, but nothing was calming him down. So we had to leave. And I wish that I had said something, even now, weeks later. Her kid was at least a year older than Ben, much more mature and vocal, though the same size. And I know that people assume Ben is about 3 or so, since he’s the same size as most 3-year-olds at the park, and they expect him to act a little older, but even still, this was an awful thing to do.

The other time doesn’t really seem as bad to me, though when I put it in words people seem to get more upset about it. Ben was throwing sand. And I was two steps away to stop him when a nanny grabbed his hand and told him “no.” He wasn’t close enough to get any kid with the sand, though I was still going to stop him. It really wasn’t necessary for someone else to step in. I don’t approve of other people disciplining my kid unless we know them or there’s danger involved, for him or another kid. Okay, not exactly true, she could have told him not to throw the sand, but don’t touch my kid. If there’d been even one other kid in the sandbox I would have understood.

Anyway, I’m always worried about these lines being crossed. I worry that I’m not doing a good enough job parenting my kid, that I’m letting him be too much on his own and pissing off the other parents. I don’t know if I’m right or wrong in this situation. I don’t know if I’m being unfair to the other kids. But 90% of the time Ben and the other kids get along well, it’s only when the other people step in that we’ve had issues.

Where are your boundaries? Am I wrong about the airplane? Would you have taken it away? I know I would have if Ben had grabbed it or the other kid had been really upset. Without thinking, it would have gone back to the kid. But I never would have given it back to Ben if it had been his toy. We share. And he needs to learn that. Maybe the kid has developmental issues, it’s what I’ve been telling myself, but I still don’t understand bringing it up if both kids were happily playing.

Sometimes I hate hearing Tom talking to Ben.

We are all the parents we are, and really I can’t fault Tom. He’s a terrific dad (and a really fantastic husband, too). But I just lose all respect for him when I hear him in the other room. He turns into a sniveling lackey. I expect to walk in their to hear Ben saying “on this, the day of my daughter’s wedding.”

Seriously, everything becomes a question. “Do you want to brush your teeth now?” “Should we go in the other room and eat dinner?” “Don’t kick daddy in the balls, okay?” That’s the worst: the okay tacked onto the end of every statement to prevent it from being too harsh.

And I don’t want to be that wife. I am that wife, but I don’t want to be that wife. I constantly rephrase everything he says when he’s in the room with me. “It’s time to brush our teeth now.” “Let’s go eat dinner.” “Don’t kick daddy!” Arg! I’m such a bitchy bitch! But it’s fingernails on a chalkboard, and it’s so easy to slip into it myself.

“It’s time to go to bed now, okay?” No, it’s not okay. He’s a toddler. Of COURSE he doesn’t want to go to bed now, he wants to play. And he needs to know it isn’t a choice. I counted the other night. He used “okay?” seven times in 15 minutes. That has to be a record.

But what’s a mom to do? I’ve tried explaining Ben will generally follow commands, that it’s easier to start with “it’s time to” so that you can blame the clock. I don’t want Ben growing up thinking that he has this power over his dad, and I don’t want him being confused when he says “no” to a question only to have someone say that it really wasn’t a question. I mean even just that sentence is confusing.

Okay, end ranting. I know this is a triviality. And I know that Tom being a little weak in his directions is much better than him being overly forceful. But I hate to see him undermining our control, okay?

And I know, he constantly has his fingers in his mouth, but if I tell him to remove them he does. But it’s comforting to him. And what else do babies have for comfort at this point? It just seems a little cruel not to let them put their fingers in their mouths.

Anyway, I just had one of these encounters, and I couldn’t help but feel a little offended with her staring at Ben as she complained about kids sucking their thumbs. And I wanted to ask her what the problem is with it? It’s more likely he’ll stop by the time he’s in preschool, the germs he picks up may boost him immune system, I never had to get up in the middle of the night to reinsert a pacifier, and I’m not the one jamming it in to get him to shush. All I see is positives. But I’d love to hear from someone with a different point of view. What are the positives to a pacifier? Why would you be against thumb-sucking? And, if you have older kids, have you ever thought about it one way or the other after the habit stopped? It just seems like one of those things that wouldn’t matter at all in the end.

As a child I wasn’t treated as well as we all should be. I don’t think that it’s necessary to get into it in detail, but it’s something that I think I need to say. It affects me every day that I spend with Ben. It’s a whisper in my ear for every decision that I make. Basically it’s important for me to tell you this, even if it isn’t important to you.

I don’t let Ben cry. I don’t think that people who let their children cry-it-out are bad people. I believe that is a decision each family needs to make for itself. But we don’t let Ben cry. I have this fear that mistreating a child is a little like alcoholism, and so, just as I don’t drink alone or ever have more than one drink in a sitting, I don’t let Ben cry. This doesn’t mean I think people who let their children cry are mistreating their children any more than I think people who have an occasional drink alone or order two drinks at a bar are alcoholics. I’m just afraid that there’s a slippery slope for some of us.

Another example: I am afraid of people who yell at their kids.

I am not a coward. I apologize too much, and I may be timid at times, but I am not a coward.

Really.

But when someone yells in my presence I have a desire to run away. It doesn’t matter if they’re yelling at a dog or merely to have their voice heard across the street. Every muscle in my body tightens up and I can feel my heart beat in my throat. And with Ben it is worse. If Ben is near me I suddenly have a keen understanding of where each and every exit is, where the crowd is thinnest, where that tree is that I might hide behind.

I think I can get over this. I think I can prevent myself from passing along this fear to Ben. Although, please don’t take this to mean that it’s okay to yell in my presence. I really don’t find it an effective form of communication.

What really scares me, what gives me nightmares is yelling myself. I worry about losing control and kicking in a door. Or hitting him. Or knocking him down. Or telling him “y’know, I wanted a life, too.” I have lost control of my anger in the past. And, like being drunk, the moment isn’t ever too clear in my memory. Mostly it was during high school and college, the only recent time being after one of the cats took a swipe at Ben when he was a tiny, tiny baby (you may have noticed I don’t speak of my cats anymore, they’re in good loving homes now).

I believe I’m more in control of my emotions now. And I’ve never hurt anyone. But I’m terrified of it anyway. I can’t imagine anyone ever thinking they had the capacity to hurt a child. I can’t imagine that if anyone loved a child as much as I love Ben that they could ever lose control of their anger, but I know that it happens every day. Can you really say, without a shadow of a doubt, that it could never be you if you know that it’s possible for other people?

And every little thing that Ben does reminds me of a parallel in my own childhood. And I thought that would make it bad, like picking at a really old scab or re-breaking a bone. Honestly? There’s a relief in it. Maybe it’s that each day with Ben I’m able to rewrite memories of what childhood is, even if it isn’t my own. Maybe it’s that I don’t need to remember that stuff anymore. Maybe it’s the feeling that I’m breaking that cycle. Maybe it’s just that I enjoy every minute of every day so much that there isn’t any room for anything worse less than that.

And these are the things that go through my head. These are the things that I’m really trying to share when I talk about values. And I have been trying for months now to figure out how to write this without embarrassing my family, whom I love. But these things need to be written. Because I need to figure out the mathematical principles of love and discipline, of safety, security, and boundaries. I need to learn how to hold on to my children without crushing them, and the formula wasn’t written down for me by my own parents.

I just finished Big Lessons for Little People, which is amazing. It’s sort of the whole reason for this post. There’s a section that talks about parents afraid to yell at their kids and all the damage that may cause. It’s amazing. I really think that just about everyone should read it, even if you don’t agree with everything she says.

We are currently (very slowly) reading Harry Potter to Ben. We’ve been reading chapter books to him at bedtime since the day we brought him home from the hospital. We will continue to do so until he tells us he’s sick of it. Maybe longer. We enjoy it and he seems to.

We’ve just met Hermione Granger on the train and the discussion the kids have about the Houses rung true to me. I’ve taken all the silly “tests” about which House I’d be in, and, while I think they’re rubbish, I do think that everyone really knows which House they’d be in. Because it isn’t about what you’d be good at, it’s truly about what you value. If the Gryffindor House were really only for the brave then Cedric Diggory would have been placed there, as well as others. And it would have been far less likely that Ron’s whole family would have been placed in the same house. I believe he was placed there because Ron’s parents did a fantastic job of passing on their values (although why Ron’s mom can’t knit a shirt herself and used sew-on patches for the Christmas sweaters really troubles me, it’s one thing not to knit at all, but to use MAGIC for KNITTING? UGH!).

Gryffindor values duty, or, as it is put elsewhere, chivalry. People find their true duty often contradicts laws and authority, as clearly happens time and again in Harry Potter. Ravenclaw values the attainment of knowledge. Slytherin values power ambition. And Hufflepuff values loyalty. (The difference between duty and loyalty? Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Or the Tick and Arthur.)

So, in trying to flesh out the values I want to teach Ben (who, poor kid, gets to be my guinea pig) I’m finding it easier to ask myself, “What would get him into Gryffindor?” Valuing friendship, honesty, risk-taking, bravery, standing up for the less fortunate and downtrodden. The truth is that it’s just vague enough to be a good stepping stone. Also, it makes it easier for me to not discount other people’s value systems. Sometimes I’m far too judgmental, and it really isn’t something I want to pass on to Ben.

So what about you? What is your North Star for these evaluations, whether religious, fictional, familial, etc. ? Or am I the only crazy one who thinks about these things as I lay in bed waiting for my son to fall back asleep or start crying so I can decide either go back to sleep or get myself up?