Mommy's Done Gone Around the Bend

Yep, yep.  Still here.  Still busy.  Just like the rest of humanity.

I haven't been feeling the blog lately (no, really?!) but I just had to answer Colleen's call to come clean about the bad mommy moments we all have.  Except she calls them REAL mommy moments because she is nicer than me.

She was so sweet and earnest when she divulged her low points, but I found myself thinking, "Really?  That doesn't seem so bad to me.  Oh crap, I am truly awful."

Actually, I don't think I am truly awful, but I have had a summer full of REAL(ly bad) mom moments so maybe it's just a cumulative effect kind of thing I'm feeling.  Yeah, let's go with that explanation.  Definitely. 

I do think it's important to be honest, and that means sometimes going "warts and all" in public.  I know that there have been times when I have been just as inspired by a mom saying, "I am screwing this up royally!!" as a mom who has all her mojo working for her.  Because that is life with kids.  Sometimes you are on FIRE and sometimes you are just going down in flames.

And like Colleen says, if anything, this list might make you feel really good about yourself today!

ONE

Baby is a puker.  I am talking BIG TIME, people.  I change her clothes/my shirt/her sheets multiple times.  A DAY.   She has reflux and we haven't put her on any medicine because I just don't see the need for it.  She is so happy, not fussy at all, gaining weight like a prize fighter, and the reflux will disappear as she sits up more and starts solid food.

But still.  The spit up is apocalyptic and I am not kidding.  I don't even use burp cloths because they are too small.  I go straight for whole receiving blankets.  And to top it off, I'm convinced that she likes to save it up for public places for the highest ick factor.  

At the doctor's office while everyone is admiring her cute outfit?  Check.  In the grocery store checkout line where they had to get a mop? Check.  In my hair, down the back of my shirt and all over the pew at church?  Check, check, check.

You would think that since she's our sixth kid and we also experienced this with Fiver that I would roll with it?  Uh, no.  I find myself over-explaining on a daily basis.  "Oh it's reflux.  I'm so sorry! She has bad reflux.  REEE-FLUX!!!!"

Also?  After a particularly bad episode I have been known to look at my baby and say something along the lines of, "SERIOUSLY?!  You needed to do that on the THIRD shirt I've worn today?!  STOP PUKING!!"

Now if that is not a patented cure for reflux in infants, then I don't know what is.   

TWO

Along the same lines as the above, I have also been known to look at Baby and say, "What. Do. You. WANT?!"  when I can't figure out why she is crying.

Because I'm the adult in this situation.

What makes it even worse is that she probably spends about .002% of her day crying.  For real.  She's a dream.

THREE

While I'm on the treadmill, I pray along with the rosary and divine mercy chaplet on my iPod.   Patterning myself after the best mother ever, right?  So good, right?!

Um, not so much, thanks to lapses in patience and maturity like this: 

"I. Am. PRAY-ing.  the.  RO-SA-RY here!!!!  STOP ARGUING!!!  If I have to stop praying and get off this treadmill there is going to be crying all over this place!!!!"

So SUPER holy.


FOUR

Last week, a small child of mine did not make it to the toilet in time.   While said child was contrite, I was irritable and annoyed at the mess since he had fooled around until it was too late, even after repeated reminders to use the bathroom.

He was very upset about his wet pants, which I knew would be enough to curb him from doing this in the future, but I still could not stop my tongue from berating him.  "I TOLD you this would happen!  When mommy says use the bathroom, then USE THE BATHROOM.  Don't wait.  Now there's a big mess."

That's what my mom calls verbal diarrhea.  Not pretty, but accurate.

FIVE

When Bun asked me to open the big storage container of trains in the playroom, I told him to pick something else to play with because I didn't feel like walking down a flight of steps.  

I've also put him off about going outside because I didn't feel like getting Mopsy and Baby all ready to go out.


SIX

Let me just say that I love Baby like crazy.  She is the sweetest little lump of babyhood ever and I wouldn't trade her for anything.

In the interest of being honest, though. . . . sometimes my OCD side still gets a little itchy that she broke the Girl-Boy  pattern we had going.

Ridiculousness, but there it is.

SEVEN

I may or may not have said these things last week:

"Okay, bye-bye and have a good day. Wait.  Are you SURE that's how you want your hair to look today?  Totally sure?"

"I quit. I don't get paid enough for this s--t"  (although in my defense I did NOT say this when any children were present.)

"I don't care if your teacher did ask you to take the cactus home, I do not want to be responsible for one more thing around here."

"No, I don't want you guys to drag out any games right now.  Fun is too messy." 



So there you go.  Some real mom moments. 

Admit it. You feel better now, don't you?  Because at least you don't have to live in a house where fun is too messy.

Care to unburden yourself of any less than stellar moments around your place?  Or, conversely, care to inspire me with what's going fabulously well in your home?  Spill it.