Can I Get a Do-Over?

Yesterday was a Day. A day from somewhere not nice and not pleasant. A day I’d really like to send back to wherever it came from and maybe pretend it never happened.

It started out with being awakened at 6:30 am by Miss coming up to my bed, “Mama? I have to ask you something. I want to save my allowance for… .” I don’t even know the rest of it, because I cut her off with a semi-growl that that was not a reason to wake me up. (Someone please, please tell me this allowance thing is just a phase.) Then, because she was mad at me, she went into her room and proceeded to bang on her door. Repeatedly. Loudly.

I’m not much of a morning person. Let’s just say it wasn’t the nicest way to start the day for either of us.

Then Sis was just, um, crazy in church. I don’t know how else to describe it. Whining and climbing and pulling and climbing and twisting and climbing and screaming, making for one full hour of misery trying to keep her from coloring on the floor/climbing over the back of the pew/throwing crayons all over the floor/tearing our books to shreds/and generally disrupting the Mass for everyone within a ten row radius. After the Mass was over I felt like I had been in a sumo wrestling match. And lost.

And the day seemed to just go downhill from there. Every time I would pull myself together, tell myself to get a grip, take some deep breaths, regroup and put on my happy face, another trivial, stupid thing would send me into a fit.

Days like yesterday are the days when I have to literally bite my tongue to keep from yelling. The days when I walk away and count to ten multiple times over really silly crap. The days when I’m swallowing hard to keep from bursting into tears because I’m just not doing it right. The days when, despite these efforts, seemingly no matter how hard I try, I still get snappy and ugly and act like a total jerk with a capital B.

These are the days when I just don’t much feel like being The Mom.

Now, don’t read that wrong, please.

I have never, not for one minute, wished that I wasn’t a mom. I love my kids beyond reason. I have wanted to be a mom for my whole life, and I know how insanely blessed I am. I’m grateful for my kids and my husband and my health and I could go on and on because I’ve really got some amazing things to be thankful for here. I get that, so please don’t go all, “What a big whiner. She has so much to be thankful for and yet she’s complaining over a bad day??” on me. I know.

But still. Sometimes being The Mom is just hard. Sometimes I just don’t feel up to doing my job very well, and at those times I pretty much suck at it. Sometimes I’m just not feelin’ it.

For the sake of illustration, let’s return to how I made a comparison to the hummingbird in my last post.

These amazing creatures are constantly in motion, always graceful and perky, never getting tired.

I really wish I could be like that.

But on days like yesterday I’m more like a drunk hummingbird, trying hard to keep myself in the air, moving all the time but not quite in the right way, so half of the time I can’t manage to hit the center of the flower, and the rest of the time I’m flopping to the ground with only one wing working, trying in vain to get myself back into the air before finally just giving up and putting on Veggie Tales.

It doesn’t happen very often that I have a whole day like this. Mostly it’s a moment here and there: Something I could have responded to better. A tone of voice that should have been kinder. A moment I might have paid a bit more attention.

Yesterday seemed to be full of those moments, and every effort I made to change the course of the day just, well failed. Yesterday was a big fat Mommy Fail Day. I kept trying. I did. Over and over and over again, I stopped, took a deep breath, and tried to do it better. And I just didn’t get there.

But that’s okay (now that it’s over). I know I’m not a bad mom, and I know today will be better (please let it be better). Sometimes I just have days like yesterday. I don’t know if there’s a particular reason for it. Probably there are a lot of them. Not enough sleep, not enough exercise, trying to control too much, etc.

I do know that it’s not my kids’ fault.

If Miss bangs loudly on her door at 6:30 am, it’s because I was rude to her when she wanted to tell me something important to her (but Oh. My. Goodness. Puh-lease let the allowance thing go to the land of “Remember-when-she-used-to-always-say-that?-That-was-so-cute/sweet/funny” really soon).

If Lass looks at me and screams, “I am not going to do what you say!” it’s probably because I didn’t ask her very nicely (and because she’s almost 3).

If they are ornery, it’s a reflection of me most of the time.

Except Sis. She’s 16 months old and that’s all there is to that. I just have to chill when it comes to her.

I just have to chill.

Today I will find my inner Cool and Calm Mommy. I will hunt her down, and I will drag her, kicking and screaming if need be, to the forefront of my Self today. Because if I have another day like yesterday I just might lose my ever-loving mind.

Chill. Happy Place.

Today will be better.

Deep breath.

Happy Monday.