The Things I Hate About Parenting

I worked hard to become a mother. Over four years of infertility treatments, the loss of a twin pregnancy at six months, god awful morning sickness, weight gain, and finally a placental abruption and emergency c-section with my daughter. When I finally -- FINALLY -- held her in my arms, it was with intense joy after a hard journey.

While my daughter was a tiny baby, our life was pretty simple and easy. She was a great baby, sleeping well immediately, happy and content. As she got older and more engaged, she was fairly easily amused by a toy or two. Then... well, then, she got older. She began to accumulate lots of stuff. Toys, DVDs, books, books that made NOISE, toys that made even MORE noise. As she became a toddler, the toys started to have parts. When she turned into a preschooler, those toys had parts that were small enough to miss when you are walking across a room, but are still just the right size to stab you in the arch of the foot as you stumble around attempting to offer comfort after a nightmare.

Because I work from home, my daughter watches perhaps slightly more television than other children (hey, I'm not perfect; I take as a win that we choose mostly PBS shows). So my life has become invaded by television shows that offer songs that worm their way into my head in the worst of ways, so as I toss and turn at night, I find myself singing about talking dogs and small rodents rescuing kittens stuck on driftwood and drifting off to sea OH MY GOD. 

Then, recently, I had one of the worst experiences of my adult life (and trust me when I tell you, that's really saying something): I went to a birthday party for one of my daughter's preschool friends at that place. You know the one. With the giant mouse, and the robotron singing animals. THAT one. On a Saturday afternoon. With 12 other parties happening AT THE SAME TIME.

Seriously. It nearly killed me.

A friend recently told me that I complain a lot about being a mom, and that stung a bit. But then I realized that I don't actually complain all that much about my daughter -- she's a tiny slice of brilliant sunshine, you know, mostly -- but I complain about the stuff that goes WITH parenting. The toys, the movies and tv shows, the princess stuff (OH MY GOD THE PRINCESS STUFF). Now there are the kids birthday parties that are in horrid places and involve parents I don't know, so there is a lot of standing around trying to find common ground (and sometimes, frankly, failing).

I assume this will only get worse as she gets older. Eventually it will be friends, wardrobe choices, and then, naturally, music. I don't see anyway past this. I'm doomed.

How do you get past it? I will confess that there is one kids show that charms me every time (you know which one I mean, the one with the party in the tummy), and there have been a couple of kids movies that have warmed the cockles of my cold, mean heart (balloons attached to a house, anyone?). But overall, I find myself rolling my eyes up in my head so far that I actually nearly perform a back flip while enduring any of it. Does it get better?

Tell me, parents of older children. Will I survive, or shall I always have these horrid songs in my head?