All Mom's get Exhausted

I just love the parents who never raise their voices at their children,who hardly ever have to count to 10(or even a thousand in some cases), who rarely get upset at the broken vases, premature hair cutting(that usually happens coincidentally at around age three or four) and seldom get frustrated at all the other mishaps that our little angels get into.  That parent, is not me.

I wanted to be "that" parent.  And I do strive to be, but it definitely doesn't happen every day.  My day started out with spilled Cheerios all over the floor and table.  No big deal, dismissible.  A side of cute happened a small bit later when my three and a half year old somehow managed to put her tutu on her dog.  My daughter just busted out in laughter which made me start laughing hysterically, and got my sons attention so he could join in on the laughter.  It was the most adorable thing, that poor dog has endured so much already, I truly am surprised she has not run away yet.

A while later, but before lunch, an all out fight broke loose about who was going to climb on a ladder I had in the house for a painting project(I forgot the note to self about putting the ladder away before the kids started climbing on it).  Lilly was pushing my son trying to get him off the 3ft ladder, my son Brady was just screaming and crying that he wasn't up at the top.  Of course Brady fell off!  Are you kidding!  I didn't yell, I simply said, in a somewhat stern voice, "okay, Lilly get down."  I put the ladder sideways on the floor.  I stepped out of the bedroom to catch a minute phone call, only to come back to the room to find both children on the ladder again.  One on one side and one on the other.  They weren't fighting anymore, so I left it.  They had fun.  I walked over to tell them all the things they could pretend, like being on a boat, or a building high in the air.  That kept their attention for a good 15 minutes.  When the novelty wore off and they moved onto a new adventure, I folded up the ladder and safely put it in a closet.

The day went on, and went by pretty well.  However, it never lasts.  We got home from a friends house and it was so incredibly nice for an April afternoon we stayed outside to play.  Brady immediately dove in feet first through a left over puddle from the rain the day prior.  Not a problem, he's a boy, he loves water.  It was a small puddle.  Have fun!  Lilly grabbed her tricycle and zoomed past me several times, also trudging through the water.  This was nice.  The kids were playing so peacefully, so I quickly took my things into the house and came back outside.  What happened next turned me into Dr Jekyll.  I didn't see the kids right away so I peered around the other side of the garage to find my eighteen month old thigh high in left over rain water.  Now, I pause to think, some people would think it's cute.  I did not.  Although my daughter was dry, I had a sneaky suspicion that she too had rampaged through the puddle but had escaped before I could see her in it.  I started to count in my head.  I got to one and just started yelling. "Get out of the water!"  I laugh while typing this because what wasn't covered in water, was covered in mud.  He was so freaking cute.  I really wish I could have laughed then, but it was just to upsetting.  I did not handle that situations so well.  One disciplinary action later and we were all in the house trying to get the soaking wet jeans off my son, trying to keep a level head on my shoulders. The days just seem to be getting more and more eventful.  I need to reconsider a new way to stop, take a deep breath and remember parenting doesn't have to be so by the book.  Don't do this, don't do that.  He wasn't hurting anything, which leads me to the story of my mommy.
I was the baby of a family of seven.  My mom for the most part stayed home until I was 5 or 6 years old.  Now with 7 kids running around I can imagine my mom having to count to a million before catching her cool.   But what I remember, my mom never yelled.  She would get so incredibly frustrated and upset, but when she lost her cool, I never got a spanking(that was always my dad's job anyway) or a time out, or yelled at.  My mom would slink off to her bedroom, lock the door behind her, take her guitar from it's tattered black case, and belt out at the top of her lungs any song she could think of at the time.  She sang until she was no longer angry.  Sometimes it was only a song or two, other times, it was the rest of the day in the bedroom alone with her guitar singing until my dad got home.  I know my recollection of this time in my life may be different if told by one of my siblings, but I just remember sitting by the closed door listening in between songs of the tears and sobs of a mother who was just exhausted that day.  Who loved being a mom but just needed a little sanity which she got from strumming that old twelve string.  I think now of that time and remember almost wanting to get my mom going just so she would go belt out another tune.  She played the guitar for us as well, but it seemed in those time of true despair she would play even more beautifully and more meaningful with so much passion and desire.  Whether it was out of anger, pity, or depression I wish I would have learned to control my "exhaustion" with the same gusto and in a similar direction as my mom did.  She didn't do everything right, but she didn't do it so wrong either.  In lieu of Mother's day next month, I encourage everyone to tell their mom's how good they did even if they did bad.  I just hope and pray one day my kids can say this too me no matter how much I may screw up now.  And my hope extends to pure begging, "God please let my kids grow up okay."

I say all of this to say, I know I'm not the only mom to go to the bathroom to cry because of something my daughter said to hurt my feelings, I'm not the only mom to open the front door, kindly step outside and scream so loud the birds even flew away, and I'm not the only mom to think I maybe wasn't the best candidate to raise children.  No matter how many bad days I have, I try to keep them at a minimum(for the sake of my children's sanity, let alone mine) and make the good days better and the great days the best days my babies could ever have.  I am a good mom, but don't ask me.....I make mistakes, but I try not to hash out every detail on how stupid I handled a situation.  Instead, I learn from it(most of the time) and move on to one of those best days.