Being a Parent

 

Being a Parent

            Motherhood starts at the moment the test says positive. You have to begin with caring for the baby inside you. Making sure the baby and yourself are healthy and in the right condition for the next 9months. When the 9 months are over, you now have a baby to care for every few hours, without a break. Soon enough the child will grow and you will need to lead it to the right path by teaching the wrongs and rights of life.  If anyone says being a parent is an easy job, it is because they don't have kids. Being a parent myself, I know no task is an easy one and it only gets hard as time goes by. This is where I like to say, “There is no turning back now.”

             Dealing with pregnancy in 9 months is not an easy job. Take it from me; I’m experiencing everything now. I have the worst morning sickness and I will tell you its not only in the morning but it is also in the evening or throughout the whole day This is different for women. Some may not even experience nausea.  There is also the gas, sore breast and headaches, not to mention sleepiness! The enjoys of pregnancy! I just can’t wait to get to the point where I’m dehydrated and my feet get swollen. That’s going to be a great summer for me. Ladies there is also weigh gain in evolved; there is no getting away with that especially with crazy cravings. Don’t get me wrong it is a wonderful experience being pregnant. The one thing I can wait for is the moving and kicking from the little one. I don’t know about you but it makes me so excited to see who is doing that inside me.

            Here comes the BABY!!! This is more fun than pregnancy. You get to hold the baby while it’s sleeping. They are most beautiful sleep and peaceful. That unfortunately doesn’t last forever because soon after you will need to feed and change the baby. Changing the baby’s diaper is always a woman’s job; men can’t stand the same smells as women can. During the diaper change you learn so much about Poo (joking haha). Soon after comes potty training and talking and walking all over the floor. I think I remember the feeding the most because it always ends up somewhere on the floor or their hair your hair. Just everywhere! We capture all those moments as parents because it is always something to talk about with family and friends. It cute and funny to talk about kids because they are learning and we are growing as parents.

            Eventually your children will begin to grow up. My daughter is 4 years old (almost 5 she won’t let me forget) and I already feel old. As a parent we grow and mature fast to teach our kids how we don’t want them to be and that is to be who we once were. Sure, they will make their own mistakes in school and life and we just have to teach them to learn from them. They will learn from some friends and family how not be and what not to do. They will find their religious ways and have questions about why life is life. As parents we just need to be supportive and do the best we can at this point.

            Being a parent is new and exciting. You never know what to expect from the children you raise. From the time they start growing inside a woman to crawling on the floor to being a young adult, you learn and they learn. Life is no blink of the eye but seeing our children grow sure does feel like it.

The Monster

            Socks piling over my head with sheets and towels but I can still see my mom on the floor crying. My sister and brother still throwing laundry on me and my other sister; I can smell the scent of the clothes, they just came out the dryer. My sister held my hand and held it tight, she told me to just close my eyes and not to look at anything. I know exactly what is going on, I know exactly what is going to happen but yet they still my sisters and brother are still protect me from seeing the pain my mother is about to endure.

The monster is running around the house. I can hear the cord from the wall being pulled from the socket and things being moved and some thrown to the ground. The hard foot steps moving the house just from down the hall. My brother screaming, “LEAVE HER ALONE!” I hear his heavy breathing and the monsters deep voice yelling. It was so loud I couldn’t make out the words. I open my eyes to see the radio in the monster hands, he is still screaming but the words are unclear to me. My attention is drawn away from him as I notice my sister throwing anything on top of us even faster than she was before. She looks as scared as I feel. She was skinny, long dark brown hair, her face filled with tears but what drew my attention to her was that she never looked up. Her eyes were closed so tight. She’s lived this longer than me and I was only 3.

How many times? How many years? Why does this happen? Has my mother ever fought back? Has my sister done what she is doing for me to my brother and other sister? Why doesn’t anyone stop this?

Towel, sheet, socks, more socks but my view was still clear. There was a loud scream, then a painful cry. What just happen? I couldn’t see! My sister covered my eyes just in time. What was that scream? What was that bang? Something fell, move your hand….move your hand… tried to fight but I can’t get her hand down… I give up trying…

She let’s go a minute later. I could see again, my mom is in a ball, the radio is out of his hands lying next to my mom on the floor. He had hit her. He hit her with the radio but that wasn’t all. His fist were still going hard and strong. One hit and than another my mom continues to cry as she takes what she is given by the monster I have just met.  

My sister stop throwing things on my head, my brother was laying next to my mother to comfort her and my other sister still sat next to me crying and squeezing my hand. I couldn’t remember much after that but it became cold once the monster was gone, the room was dark and the radio was gone……

The nights were hard but the mornings were even worst. My mom locked herself in the room for hours. My dad was banging on the door for forgiveness. I hate to hear her cry, I hate that I couldn’t see her most of the day, I even hate to have to relive it in my head and see what that monster did to her.

Some days she didn’t respond to him and those were the days he would lock his self in the bathroom and not come out for a long time. One day after this happened I walked in on him because I needed to use the restroom. I opened the door, he looked up. His hair was shaggy brown with grey mixed in, clothes were baggy with dirt all over the,, boots were so dirty you couldn’t tell what color that they were but all I could see was white powder on his nose and the red in his eyes. I thought he was crying, yet there were no tears in his eyes. I didn’t know what it was at the time but I know it wasn’t a good thing because every time he would do it, the nights ended up the same as the last. He looked at me with a straight face and told me to leave… it was ashamed that I knew this man’s name. I close the door.

I knocked, “Dad, I need to go potty please.” 

            I’m 22 years old and I have only known my father for 4 or maybe 5 of those years. Could I truly say that I have known my father for those years? You are probably saying no to yourself right now or even saying maybe. I will tell you this; I have never known the real person my dad was. I only known the monster he was towards my mother and the kids they had. My mom would always tell us even to this day,” If you known him before the drugs, before the abuse, you would have known the man I fell in love with.”

I remember the only time he was human. It was only those times when he would lay in front of the TV on the floor and he would just sleep there all day long. I was a daddy’s girl then. I would just would lay next time him and feel the heat from his big belly and just sleep beside him. This was the time the family was at peace, this was the time he didn’t seem like the monster the drugs made him to be. That man I lied next to… he was my daddy.