Doubt

We all have those mornings in which absolutely everything goes wrong. The ones that slap you out of sleep and declare, "Hello there, I'm just here to make your day miserable. Now let's get this party started." The mornings when you step out of bed and immediately stub your toe on the nightstand. Then you slip and fall in the shower, your hair dryer stops working and all of your clothes shrunk a size hanging in your closet overnight. You know those mornings, right? We've all been cursed by them, and unfortunately there is no way to escape them. Having those mornings from time to time is just the sacrifice that we make for being granted another day.

I had one on Wednesday. It was so bad, in fact, it's taken me two days to gain the strength to write about it. I woke up 10 minutes late with a splitting headache. Strike one. When Will woke up, he apparently had decided that this was a day to just rage. He whined and cried about everything. EVERY.SINGLE.THING. He had a full blown meltdown when I told him it was time to get in the shower. Screaming, sobbing, thrashing around on the carpet while I attempted to remove his pajamas. Let me just tell you, trying to get a kid's pajamas off of their body while they are convulsing all over the floor is no easy task. I finally got him undressed and in the shower, but he cried "I CAN'T TAKE A SHOWER!!!" the entire time. Strike two. Getting him dried off and getting his clothes on after the shower was an equally daunting task. By this point, he was so mad that he was fighting everything. He decided between sobs that he wanted toaster muffins for breakfast. I threw them in the toaster and went to get myself dressed. My black shirt had lint all over it, and I couldn't find the lint roller. In between looking high and low for it, I grabbed the muffins out of the toaster, threw them on a plate and took them to Will. Found the lint roller, but realized while rolling that my shirt, (one that I had bought about 2 weeks ago and wore one other time), now had a hole in it. I took some deep breaths and found another shirt. Meanwhile, I could still hear Will whining in the other room. Something about "MY MUFFIN!" and "FIX IT!" Apparently, when I removed his muffins from the toaster, a tiny piece of one of the muffins tore off.

Stop right there. To any normal person, this isn't a huge deal. Who cares that a little piece of the muffin broke off, right? Let me tell you who cares...Will cares! This kid has an abnormal aversion to food that breaks in any way. Granola bars should be banned from our house because of the way they tend to crumble. It's just too much for his little mind to comprehend. He simply can't take it.

I gently tried explaining to him that I couldn't reattach the torn piece back onto the muffin. You would have thought that I had said to him, "All of the toys in the world will be destroyed and you will never again be allowed to play," because another meltdown of gargantuan proportions ensued. He decides that he doesn't want the muffins at all then. I take them away and go to put on my shoes. OKAY, WHERE ARE MY SHOES?? I search and can't find them while listening to Will whine, "I want my muffins!" I ignored him. I remembered that the shoes I was looking for were in the car.

I threw our lunch into a bag and told Will it was time to go. (At this point, we're already 5 minutes late leaving the house.) He cries that he wants me to carry him out to the car. I grab Will up, snap at Rob and he snaps back.

Strike 3.

Tears. Tears and tears and more tears. I cried for torn muffins, and new shirts with holes in them, and headaches that wake you up in the morning, and kids that don't want to take showers. I cried for couples who snap at each other when things don't go right. Mostly though, I cried because of doubt. Doubt in my ability to be a mom to two kids, when look at me, I can't even do it with one! All these feelings of inadequacy just came washing over me, and I started to question if I can really make it work when I have two kids screaming instead of one. I found myself saying out loud, "I can't do this," which made me cry harder. Now, I thought, I'm a mom who can't hold it together and is crying in front of her kid. Will was silent and concerned as I strapped him into his car seat, and let the tears just roll down my cheeks. I got in the car, dried my face, and told myself that I am going to be a wonderful mother to both of my children. I told myself that people do it every single day, and make it work, and I'll be no exception. I told myself that it's normal to have these days and tomorrow would be better. I told myself all of that, but deep down, I thought I was lying. But you know what, the next day was better. Will was an angel, my shirt didn't have a hole in it, my shoes were in my closet, and there were no broken muffins. These are the kinds of days that make all the other ones worthwhile.

Happy weekend,
L