You know what’s a nightmare? This whole millenial thing of “reparenting oneself” while also raising children. Therapy is too expensive for all of us to go at once, so we default to letting our kids get professional help while flailing spectacularly ourselves. Neat.

I often feel like I have zero skills to be allowed to raise children. I’m perpetually worried that I’m screwing them up some how (I am. We all are. It’s just how parenting goes). I joke that it’s a good thing we started savings accounts for our kids that they can use for whatever they want…because they might want therapy once they don’t live with us anymore.

I look around the house and see constant reminders of my kids, all day every day. Most of them are cute (the Valentines box for school, the goody bag from a birthday party, the toaster left out from breakfast, the random sock on the stairs) and some of them drive me nuts (the eleventy billion pairs of shoes all over the floor even after showing them the shoe rack I got specifically so that wouldn’t happen).

I want to have a perfectly cleaned and decorated house, but I also want my house to be the one the kids want to be at. I don’t think I’m doing great at either, to be honest. There’s clutter everywhere and I’m constantly tired and just want peace and quiet.

I want the girls to feel safe talking to me about whatever, whenever, wherever. Most of the time I think they do.

But sometimes, I just can’t.

Mornings are especially challenging. One of the girls takes forever to wake up and when she does? Woof. It’s dukes up for her. She’s ready to fight from the jump. And – unfortunately – we wind each other up. It’s so hard for me to get and stay regulated first thing in the morning and she tests me every single day.

But god, I love that girl. She makes me giggle. She’s still tiny enough to pick up. She’s smart as hell. She’s creative. She’s extra as fuck.

So why is it so hard to remember all the things I love about her when she’s driving me crazy?!

These are the things that make me wonder if I’m succeeding at all in this parenting thing.