I know we all have days like this. I know it. That doesn't make me feel better really.
It's not that I'm normally an amazing mom. I hum along at okay with a few moments of really good scattered about.
I'm consistent. I believe that consistency is important to raising good humans. I also believe that being here through the tough stuff, even if I lose my cool more often than I want is also important. It's a lot better than jumping ship I think.
I have a temper. I won't say it's out of control, because it isn't. I think it used to be when I was much younger (ask my parents and siblings...they can vouch for how nasty my temper is and how often I used it).
One of my siblings described my temper as a volcano, but I think of it more like a tornado. It can come up quickly, be really really nasty, sometimes do some horrible damage, and then just as fast it dies. I'm always miserably ashamed of myself when it's over. Always. Even if I was justified in my anger, I am always ashamed of how it comes out of me.
I always apologize. And I always mean it.
Part of the problem is I tend to hold things in for too long. I don't deal with being angry or upset as things happen because I always wonder if I'm over-reacting. It's a direct result of all the gas-lighting that went on in my youth. My father and brother (who I love, dearly, and who I know love me) often down played my natural emotional responses and failed to take me seriously in anything unless I was calm and cold about things. I know that they didn't do this on purpose to hurt me. It is a very common problem, one that has been all but beaten into our boys for many generations now, that if you are emotional about something then you are over reacting, or ridiculous, or some kind of masculine failure. It's also a weapon used by all too make women feel that if we are feeling anything at all then we are irrational.
I'm sure many of you know what I mean.
I hold things in until it's all a big ball of angry in the pit of my stomach and then something small will happen and there just isn't room to contain it all anymore and I pop.
Since Brady and I got engaged and married I have tried really really hard to be better at dealing with things as they come instead of letting them ball up inside. It was hard for a while because Brady doesn't talk about his feelings much and I talk about everything way too much. We made an unofficial deal to always try and say what we mean. Brady is a really really mellow guy who doesn't get bothered by much and he has helped me learn to be mellow. He has helped me see that there are a lot of things really not worth getting worked up over, and that they things worth getting worked up over can be dealt with as they come so I'm not spitting mad a week later instead.
With all that explained I can move on.
I have been working really hard with the kids to respect and show love for our house and the people and things in it. I have talked about the difference in their behavior at school or grandma's house compared to home. They are happy to help their teachers and readily show their love for them by responding to requests for help quickly and with smiles. Glad to help, LOVE to help. Similar responses to when they are with friends or grandma. At home they fight me tooth and nail over what they would do readily for others.
I have asked them why they feel different about school and home. They of course don't know, but Rory and Cadence admit that it is wrong for them to treat their teachers, friends and grandma's with respect and actions of love and to then treat me like something that crawled out of a gutter. Their teacher asks nicely once and they are happily responsive and quick on their feet. I ask three or four times nicely only to be ignored. It isn't until I yell or growl that they move at all and even then it is with reluctance and much murmuring. Then when I say sorry for getting mad they complain that they hate when I yell, or that I yell all the time. I remind them that I didn't yell first. I asked, kindly, but they weren't listening then. That I wouldn't resort to yelling if they would respond when I simply asked. I ask why they didn't listen the first, second or third time.
They don't know. They never know. It's maddening. And painful. It hurts me that they so readily show love for those outside our home but rarely show it to me inside. Hurt turns to anger when it just sits around and I have to work very hard not to let this issue eat at me. My older two agree that the behavior is very wrong. I explain that I don't want them to grow up and treat a husband the way that they treat me. That love is a doing thing more than it's a saying thing.
They always promise to get better and a few days go by and we are having the conversation again. Like I said, I'm consistent. I want them to get this right because home should be some place they want to be, not some place they tolerate until they can get away.
The last few days have been hellish. Kids getting sick one after another, emptying bucket after bucket of puke, cleaning up the puke that missed the bucket, washing sheets and towels and blankets, and clothes, cuddling a cranky 22 month old most of the night between his sister's puking sessions.
I have been running on 12 hours of sleep spread out over three days.
On top of that we leave on a plane to visit family on Sunday evening. Not a vacation. Vacations don't involve me working just as hard as I do at home, but it's a visit I am really looking forward too as there will be pools and my siblings and my dad and mom and sweet mother-in-law around to share the load with me and to wile away hours with. So between all the sickness and cranky I have been finding luggage, making lists, finding matching shoes, chargers and swimsuits. Getting things ready for our cats to have a vacation with some wonderful friends (bless you so much for taking them for us, really you are angels among men). Washing an insane amount of clothing and cleaning, always cleaning, so I don't have to come home to a dirty house after two weeks with cousin's and grandparents and the nightmare that is flying with four children.
Yesterday everyone seemed to be feeling better by dinner. Everyone ate, all the food stayed down, everyone went to bed. Yes. Hooray.
Today everyone is cranky. Messes left all over. Cadence feels sick again (and truly is sick). Owen is crying and hanging all over me. Beckah is doing her best to incite a riot because she just plain wants to be mean.
After, patiently, waging war with them most of the day I ask the two healthy kids in the middle to pick up the living room so I can vacuum and deal with the rest of the laundry. Beckah completely ignores me and Rory lets out a sigh worthy of any angst ridden adolescent and begins to pick up one toy at a time and slowly march it up the stairs, slowly put it away, and then slowly march back down to repeat the process. 20 minutes later Beckah is throwing things at a furious Owen and Rory is loudly complaining about ALL the work she has done while taking her third toy slowly up the stairs.
At this point I lost my cool. Just flat out lost it.
I yelled. Bordered on screaming really. It was horrible. I have no clue what I yelled at them. I'm hoping I didn't cuss, but I really don't remember. I did toss Rory her backpack and tell her to pack up a few things and that if it was really so horrible living here that we could find her someplace she could finally be happy with.
The little people cried. Rory yelled at me until she got upstairs to pack and then started to cry.
I sat on the stairs, with a sobbing Owen and cried. I had a flash back to when I was 8 or 9. My mom had kicked us all out in the backyard. I have no clue what we had done but she was really really mad. When my mom got mad, we got scared. Mom was scary when she was mad. Still is actually. I do my very best not to cross my mother. She kicked us out and told us that she was going to send us away. Anywhere. She didn't care. We had crossed a line and she was finished. She was crying. We were all crying. We stayed out there all afternoon until Dad came out after he got off work. He looked very serious. Not angry. I think I would have preferred him yelling. He did yelling and bluster really well. But his solemn, serious face is one I will remember forever.
He told us that he had talked mom into giving us another chance. That we would have to work really hard and be very good and that we owed mom a very good apology. The four of us were huddled together, scared. I am the oldest and, by default, was expected to do the talking. I have no idea if my apology was actually any good, but it must have passed muster because we were allowed to stay.
I have a streak of responsibility in me a mile wide. I was far from the perfect child, really far actually, but from that day on I tried really really hard to not burden my parents, especially my mother. Her good opinion still means the world to me.
I have no idea if my siblings remember that day. I remembered it often. I know now that my mom and dad wouldn't have sent us away. I know for a fact that for a few moments, maybe even minutes, my mom was dead serious about being finished with us. I know because I felt that way today. I was very much finished and because of that I said things that I didn't mean, could never mean. I could never send any of them away. Not for good. I have a hard enough time sending them to Grandma's house for a night or two and I would trust both my mom and mother-in-law with my life. There is no way I could give them up.
I had to get up then, gather them all up and sob over them and tell them how sorry I was, that I didn't mean any of it, that I just want them to please help me with a smile on their face. They were just as tearful saying they would do better, that they loved me and never wanted to leave. We were a big soggy pile at the bottom of the stairs for a bit, then Beckah said something silly and we laughed and the pile broke up and we finished cleaning.
After we were all done a miracle happened.
All four of them fell asleep. At the same time. I have had quiet for over an hour now. After I took the picture I had to say a prayer of thanks. The quiet and peace was just what I needed and I know that there is no way something like this happens without the Lord's intervention. Any mother with more than two kids knows the truth of what I speak.
I have a feeling that things will be much better when they all wake up. It can't really be much worse. I felt the need to share it. I want my kids to be able to look back at this when they have kids of their own and know that I was a bad parent too. That it happens. That parents are just people trying not to screw things up to badly. I want them to know that being a bad mom for a day isn't the end of everything. Tomorrow I can try to be a good mom again and odds are I will be halfway decent because I am trying. Trying leads to doing if you are trying right. I don't ever plan to stop trying.
