#parenting struggles

Apparently, I was a very difficult baby to lull to sleep.

According to my parents, the usual gentle lullabies never really worked on me. The soft, dreamy ones? The ones designed to make babies drift off peacefully?

Yeah. Apparently, baby me was not impressed.

Dad tried everything. The classics, the sweet ones, the “this should absolutely work” songs. Nothing. I’d fuss, I’d squirm, and eventually they started wondering if maybe I just wasn’t built for the traditional bedtime routine.

Looking back now?

Honestly, that… should’ve been the first sign.

Because the lullabies that actually worked were never the quiet, delicate ones. They were the ones with a little more energy. A little more chaos. A little more adventure.

And yes… apparently pirate-themed songs were a winner.

Which, in hindsight, explains a lot.

Because somewhere between Papa’s old passions, my own imagination, and a few very questionable bedtime choices, a lifelong pirate obsession was born. Thanks for that, Dad. Really set the course early there. 🏴‍☠️

It’s actually kind of funny thinking about it now. The songs Dad chose for me ended up reflecting something I didn’t even understand yet: I was never going to fit neatly into one little box.

I think he sometimes forgets that I’m not exactly like my older sister. We might share the same father, but we definitely came from very different storms.

I’m the wild one. The loud one. The one who needed adventure instead of silence.

And I think Papa might have eventually had a talk with Dad about that, because the lullabies that stuck around for me were very different from the ones that came before.

Not because the first one wasn’t meaningful. It was.

But sometimes love has to learn a person before it can reach them.

Sometimes a kid doesn’t need the song everyone drifts off to sleep to.

Sometimes they need the song that sounds like them.

Turns out mine just happened to involve pirates. 🦉✨

Honestly Papa tried to get involved at some point and I immediately, when I was a baby, went to sleep at the sound of the I.M.P jingle of all things 😂

And honestly I can’t believe that it had worked!

You know honestly as much as Lucifer is silly and that magical combination of adorable and sexy, the thing that is the most attractive to me about this dude is the brutally real exhausted parent side NO ONE FUCKING TALKS ABOUT who is just fucking over full-time adulting/looking good/managing shit and just can't wait to get back to his chunky ass comfy sweater and jammy bottoms and just play with ducks in peace because they just make him happy, okay??

This is solidarity.

I'M SORRY THAT I DIDN'T RECEIVE THE MANUAL ON WHAT IS AND ISN'T OKAY TO SAY IN 2025!!!!

Me, my mother, my mother’s friend and her child are at a resort. We were sitting eating dinner and during the dinner I saw a girl, maybe three or four, on the dock away from her parents and her parents were only half watching her too

This was odd so I pointed it out to the group, they too found it odd. I the asked my mum ‘would you ever let me that far at her age?’ And she goes ‘god no!’

She then told the story of how when I was two I used to run and jump into any body of water in sight, didn’t matter if I was fully clothed, shoes on or off, or the fact that I LITERALLY COULDNT SWIM, I just jumped in.

It eventually got to the point where she had to get me swimming lessons for little kids and apparently I had a blast.

She also told the story of one time how my older brother fell into the pool while they were there (my mum had to drag my two older brothers along to get there becasue school pickup and swim lessons clashed) my other brother was also always just wandering off. The swim instructor must have thought we were so weird

Anyways, after the lessons when I would bolt to a body of water, my mother wouldn’t stress as much.

Do you ever sit and wonder—What did I do wrong as a mom? What did I do wrong that now my child has to suffer from an illness, a disability, a syndrome? Why does it feel like every time I take one of my children to the doctor, they find something else? Another diagnosis. Another treatment plan. Another reminder that their childhood will never be what I once hoped for them. I have done everything…