...and now I get it, I understand why there are women out there who are evening alcoholics whose children refer to the wine bottle as "mommy's soda," why they pop a few pills to get through each day and go running for the shelter of a mother's little helper. (Doctor please, some more of these.) And worst of all why, however horrific, some mothers lose it and do insane acts - because they have gone insane.
I can imagine that in the many "walks of life" their are things that are the most frustrating to people. Maybe if you are a statistician the most frustrating thing might be when the numbers don't add up. For a baseball player, maybe the most frustrating thing is when your injury won't heal and let you play at your best capacity. Maybe for a politician the most frustrating thing is on the one issue you haven't actually manipulated and lied about, no one will be believe you. I don't know. But I do know that as a full time parent, the most frustrating damn thing is when I cannot get anything accomplished because of a constant stream of interruptions.
Recent example:
Prepare to sit down to finally register online for volunteer job I have volunteered for...put infant to sleep and set remaining children up with various games, toys and other. Announce to remaining awake offspring that I am sitting down to a project and do not want to be interrupted. Sit down. Type in three words - Respond to panicked request to kill a large spider that is crawling on the floor. Answer ringing telephone. Fix broken toy. Run upstairs to find three year old bouncing in the crib with now wakened infant. Toss three year old out of the room (she begins to cry). Attempt to sooth infant back to sleep. Listen as eruption of tears come from six year old downstairs because of another "broken" toy. Bring now wide awake infant downstairs and try to go back online to finish registering on website required for new volunteering....website shut down, user names and passwords lost. Mother: exasperated.
Maybe this blog should be titled The Bitch and Moan Project...
Whose idea was it to start a family? Whoever said getting married was the thing we should all want most in life? What is so wrong with serial monogamy?
I am trying to envision that time in my life when I will look back and see how wonderful this all was, see how my children have grown into beautiful adults and have gone out into the world to build lives of their own...I look forward to that idyllic moment. I hope I am lucid enough to appreciate it. At the rate I am going, that moment may come as I sit in a sterile room wearing a bathrobe while my grown children speak in loud, clear voices telling me that they have brought me some ice cream, "PRALINE PECAN, YOUR FAVORITE FLAVOR MOM, OH BOY!"
I got a phone call today from another mom. She was embarrassed to admit that she feels she is on the brink of loosing it. (She might be right, she recently went to the hospital due to a panic attack.) I calmly soothed her into telling me what was really bothering her. I listened with zero judgement. I got it. I empathized with her completely. Of course it was easy for me to listen, express my care, and give her small doses of advice and encouragement because her problems are as simple and clear as the summer sun. As for my own problems - solutions allude me like the prospect of a size 6 dress.
After a bit of decompressing, I find my three musketeers behaving themselves as if they were in a Disney movie. Even the under slept infant is blowing me sweet kisses from across the room. My heart swells and I become eager to make them lunch and give them leftover birthday cake.
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