The MotherVerse Blog: mothering out loud

I think I’m a pretty good mom. I’m home full-time with a one-year-old and a three-year-old, and the fact that I’m still sane, usually dressed, and relatively cheerful most of the time pretty much fits the definition, in my book. We all have our strengths, and mine include getting the naptime routine down to an efficient five minutes, tolerating children’s music with equanimity, and training my kids to say things like, “Mama, you’re a real good cooker. Thank you for cooking me such a nice lunch.” (Well, the older child, anyway. Who knows what’s in store with the baby. So far it looks like her contribution to a conversation like that might be, “Hate the roasted squash. And what’s up with the turkey burger? I will now throw it on the floor.”)

But we all have those parenting tasks we’re just not so great at. You know: they’re usually strategies or activities highlighted in all the glossy parenting magazines, things like making homemade Halloween costumes or pureeing your own baby food (in response to which I always say, “Gerber exists FOR A REASON.”).

Or rotating the toys.

Do you do that? Rotate the toys? It makes perfect sense; it’s totally sound in theory. You’re supposed to pack certain toys away for a time–several weeks, I think, or longer–and then periodically switch them out with others that have been in use in the meantime. The idea is to keep your children interested in their playthings over time, by allowing them to “forget” about the ones in storage, thus allowing new discoveries and exploration when the old toys are once again presented. It also, of course, prevents undue playroom clutter and toddler overstimulation, by limiting the number of toys around at any one time.

I’ve never been good at rotating the toys. When my preschooler was a baby, I tried, and I kept it up pretty well for awhile (and it’s true that the strategy was very successful: Julia would play for half an hour with a toy she’d been bored to tears with before its temporary disappearance). But then I had baby number two, and the toys multiplied along with the parenting tasks, and, well–the only thing I thought about rotating was my nursing position. (Not that I actually rotated that, either.)

I’m trying once again to rotate the toys. But I always end up doing it in a totally ineffective manner. My girls end up discovering where the hidden toys are stored, and I find them sitting in my bedroom closet playing with the Fisher-Price circus among my shoes, for example, or gamely opening the cedar chest and helping themselves to packed-away stuffed animals and miniature musical instruments. (”But Mama, why oh WHY did you hide away my Zoe doll?”) Something’s getting lost in the toy-rotation translation.

In parenting, you’ve got to make peace with the things you’re not good at, don’t have time for, or don’t care about. There’s too much going on to excel at it all, and the best you can hope for is that the things you let slide, or the things you forget, or the things you just can’t do, are the minor things–the small change–and that when it comes to what really matters about bringing up children, you’ll be right there, up to your ears in your best parenting self. I’d rather be good at, say, instilling impeccable manners than rotating the toys.

But wouldn’t it be nice to do both?