The gap between easy and difficult days when taking care of a two-year-old is huge

The miso soup has gone cold and is forming a puddle on the floor.

At dinner time, my child lifts the plate with their small hands and tries to pour the miso soup they spilled onto it back into the bowl. The miso soup spilled on the table drips onto the floor, creating a puddle. It's not just that spilled water cannot be gathered back into the basin; the miso soup on the plate cannot be returned to the bowl. Watching this out of the corner of my eye, I silently shovel spoonfuls of food into my mouth.

One pattern, one plate.
The optimal solution for enjoying meals with a zero-year-old and a two-year-old.
Even though I wrote that so proudly, it's not working at all.

Days when childcare is a breeze

The gap between easy days and difficult days when taking care of a two-year-old is extreme. The difference between 'easy' and 'hard' in gaming terms is so vast that it feels like playing a completely different game.

On 'easy' days, they come home from daycare in a good mood. They wash their hands by themselves, and when dinner is ready, they say, 'I'll carry the food,' and take their plate to the table. Then they sit down like a good child and eat their meal happily.

Ah, so cute. How happy I am.

I eat my own meal while feeling deeply touched.

I even have the luxury of taking photos.

Today was a difficult day

However, on 'difficult' days, things don't go like that. They are already angry from the moment they get home from daycare. I think it's probably because they wanted to stop by the supermarket on the way home. Carrying a squirming two-year-old, I somehow manage to take off their shoes and let them loose inside. They charge at the zero-year-old I just finally put to sleep, touching their cheeks with cold, germ-covered hands. While screaming '(Stop it!)' in my heart, I say,

'Don't touch with dirty hands, let's wash them.'

Although I try to keep a gentle attitude, the sound of the zero-year-old crying out in surprise, 'Aaaah,' leaves me completely exhausted. I carry the squirming two-year-old to wash their hands for now. They are still crying and screaming that they want to play with the water, but since I can't deal with that, I force the hand-washing to end.

This is exactly when the one-pattern, one-plate method should come in handy. Let's quickly make dinner and eat.

Just as I thought that, the two-year-old snatched the one-plate meal I was preparing and headed to the table saying, 'I'll eat this.' In the end, the adult's portion was messed up by the two-year-old, and since it was for an adult, it wasn't to their taste, so they spat it out saying, 'I won't eat this.' The two-year-old, now in play mode, triumphantly dumps the miso soup onto the plate.

And so, the miso soup goes cold and forms a puddle on the floor.

How to get through the difficult times

When things are difficult, I just give up. I don't expect a fun dinner on days like this.

Get the kids to eat something, give them a bath, and put them to bed. If I can do that, nothing else matters.

It doesn't matter at all if they barely eat their meal, if miso soup spills on the floor, or if the room is a mess with toys. My husband gets frustrated and speaks harshly to our child because dinner, the highlight of the day, has been ruined, but even that can't be helped today. We've cleared the bare minimum.

When I adopt that mindset, I can go about the caretaking calmly, in a state of nothingness. I focus all my energy solely on completing the tasks. I keep my voice gentle as always, but with a detached heart. When I do that, strangely enough, I can get through it without getting too frustrated.

And so, tonight was a very difficult night for caretaking.

I wonder if a day will come when I can enjoy this randomness, where the difficulty level of caretaking keeps changing. On the occasional easy day, I'm given hope that 'maybe days like this will continue from now on,' and then on a difficult day, that hope is crushed with the realization that 'ah, it was just a fluke...' My emotions are like a roller coaster.

Since I only have a few more years (presumably) of this caretaking, I want to ride out this fleeting roller coaster, including the difficult days.