I never claimed to be a perfect mom

 



I never claimed to be a perfect mom and sometimes I fully admit that I'm pretty bad at it. Because if one of your kids has to ask if you still love them, then obviously you've done something wrong today. But I did think that after almost 11 years of doing this parent thing I'd learned some tips. We'd made it to the point in our family where the good days far outnumbered the bad. We'd hit our stride and it was going to be smooth sailing from here on out. (If you aren't laughing right now, you should be.)

We'd just survived 10 weeks of summer. I'd try to convince you that I wasn't counting down, but I totally was and didn't even try to hide it. I love the sleeping in and fun activities and not having a schedule part of summer. I do NOT love the everyone touching each other and the all my friends are gone and I'm bored and the general we are soooooo sick of being together part of summer. Anyway it'd been fun, we'd survived, and most importantly all the kids were back in school again.

We'd had some ups and downs. The first month of first grade is always hard. The shy one was doing okay at school and dealing with all other change as I should have expected (with tears). The brave one only had to call me once because she'd been crying all day. We are trying to figure out a routine that fits in everyone's extra activities, as well time to do homework and get enough sleep.

During my "me" time I've almost got the routine down. I'm finishing projects and putting the house back in order and even started to exercise again. I came back to the blog (Hi) and was finding time for several other writing things as well. I've even worked on BRAVE a little bit and submitted some requests to write articles for a new website. And not only did the lady in charge say she loved my blog, but I also got all 4 of the articles that I wanted. YEAH!

Totally smooth sailing, I've totally got this mom stuff figured out. Right? Wrong! Two days after I got the acceptance email, everything fell apart. Okay not everything but I had one big day of EMF moments. You know those Epic Mom Fail ones.

It's starts like this, I'm not a morning person. I'm fine once I'm awake, but it can take me awhile of having my eyes open to reach this state. Before I'm awake, I don't love noise. I don't really want to talk to anyone. I want to sit on the couch and read Facebook and make sure you are eating your breakfast but not actually talk for a little bit. Get the picture? My kids are way more excited to greet the day than I am. They like to tell me very loud stories about everything that happened while we were apart (and sleeping) during the night. Mornings at our house can be a bit trying. Luckily Dad makes lunches, but I still need to make sure everyone is ready for the day (teeth, hair, clothes, food, etc.) All of this is occurring while I'm trying not to have conversations that require competent feedback.

Last Friday all of the kids were either best friends and very talky talky. Or bitter enemies and let me push all your buttons until you hit me. All vacillated between both extremes. By 7:51 (about 7 min before we have to be in the car) I started yelling, uncontrollably. STOP TOUCHING! STOP YACKING! PUT ON YOUR SHOES! You get the idea. At that point I'm sure I said many other not great things. Mostly I just couldn't wait to get them out the door and enjoy my peace and quiet. The weekend continued with much of the same, and Saturday night ended with my cuddlebug sitting next to me and asking if I still loved him. My reply was I always love you, but sometimes I need you to go away for a little bit so I can remember how much.

The kicker of the whole situation was that one of those articles I'd been assigned was "10 things to remember when your child is being disobedient." You want to know what my #1 thing is? It's that you love them. The thing I'd pretty much forgotten all weekend as I'd yelled and screamed and sent them away. I do think that there are times when you need to take a break from your kids. Especially when you have very little patience. Take time to calm down, say a prayer, call Dad for backup. There are others when I need to swallow my pride and pull that kid into my arms and tell them I love them. Maybe as I work on that article I'll learn to take some of my own advice to heart.