This morning, I woke up with a headache a little worse than usual. When I woke up this morning, I didn't want to be someone's mommy. I woke up this morning, and I wanted to block out the sunlight, ignore the "mommy!"s, and sleep my day away. I didn't, but I fantasized about it briefly. Later, about half way through my wake up coffee, they asked for breakfast, and I asked myself quietly why they needed to eat RIGHT NOW. Nevertheless, I put them off for another half hour, at which point i got up, and fixed them a bowl of cereal. I changed a diaper, on my lap, without wiping his butt, and I chuckled to myself. I fought with two kids about nap time, which never actually happened, and then I laid one in his bed, and pretended for about 10 minutes that I didn't hear him. He very begrudgingly took his nap, and I said a quiet prayer. During the nap time that should have been, I ignored the laundry that should have been folded, and tried to take a nap. Instead, I refereed through fights and shrieks, and threats. I rolled my eyes, and thought for a minute about leaving them to their devices and checking later to see how it all went down. After their "naps", it was time to feed them lunch. I fed them raviolis, knowing they weren't going to eat them, and prepared myself for the fight that was coming. Again, I rolled my eyes, and wondered why I bother. I considered giving them the lecture that money doesn't grow on trees, and that they had to eat the raviolis, and then i decided...as i shoved dried fruit loops into my mouth that i wasn't interested in the argument today. I fed the baby his bottle, and counted in my head the number of hours until bedtime. I didn't change the baby the second that he peed, and I didn't feel bad about it today. I went into the bathroom with the intention of going pee, but instead just stood there, staring at myself in the mirror, marveling at how quiet it was in the bathroom. I briefly considered that my husband might have been onto something when he began his ritual of taking his phone AND his headphones into the bathroom. Right on cue, the handle starts to jiggle. Of course, I thought to myself, someone always has to pee when I'm in here.
I told you all of that to tell you this: Motherhood isn't glamorous. It isn't always a walk in the park. It isn't always full of rainbows and sunshine. You see picture of new moms and they're all smiling, holding their newborns to their chests. The truth is, while there is a lot of that, there is a large portion of motherhood that ISN'T like that. What about those moments where your new baby has been crying for hours, and NOTHING you do is helping, and rather than keep trying, you put him in his crib, sit on your bed, and cry with him? What about those moments when your one year old throws up on his outfit after it took you a full hour to convince him to get dressed? Instead of changing him AGAIN, you throw some clothes in the diaper bag, and head off to the sitter, knowing full well she's not going to take him, and you'll be late for work, with child in tow. What about those mothers who tried for days, weeks, months to breastfeed? Suffering through the pain of knowing that you aren't providing for your child. Crying as she cries because you just can't get it right. What about that moment, when the house is dark and finally quiet, that you sit at the kitchen table, with your head in your hands....reliving that LONG day, and wondering if there's more to this life than ABC's and blocks? The mothers of teenagers who deal with the constant attitude and drama of teen angst...don't you ever wanna shut the door behind her as she heads off to school, mumble under your breath that she'll get hers, and then settle in the bathtub with a shot of tequila and a dark bathroom? These are the quiet thoughts that cross our minds, the thoughts we rarely share with others. These are the things you maybe say to your mother, if you're close, to your best friend, if she gets it...but the reality is, these are the thoughts that make us feel like bad parents. But they don't make us bad mothers. They don't change our ability to do the things our children need us to do, to provide for them. What they do, is make us real. They make motherhood the raw and true experience that it is! There are going to be a million amazing moments. You're going to be proud of him as he learns to walk. He's going to take his first steps.....right into your waiting arms. You're going to swoop him up, and kiss him. You'll tell him that you're so proud of him. Two weeks later, as you're cleaning up yet another broken glass, and scrubbing nail polish out of the carpet, you'll ask yourself aloud why you were so excited to teach him how to walk. There are also going to be a million moments like this. Days like today, when I'm frustrated and irritable, and wondering what possessed me to have 3 children so young, I tell myself that its important to remember that we're human. That these things happen, that this is life. It's beautiful, it's disastrous, it's chaotic. And it's perfect way.
