Motherhood is Not for Faint of Heart

If you are a mother, you've been there. You've felt your insides burn as your child directly disobeys, embarrasses you or simply blows you off. You've felt the anger and embarrassment of such things and have likely had to walk away to collect yourself before administering proper discipline - whatever that might be. But what if you can't walk away? What if you have two or three children, all begging for attention at the same time? What on earth do you do? Wouldn't it be great if you could just snap your fingers and freeze time for a second (or ya know 12 hours - long enough for a a restorative night of sleep?)?

When my oldest was a toddler and a preschooler and did the dreaded deed of pitching a massive fit in a public area, I simply shut off. I felt the boil on the inside, the rush of blood to my head and the clenching of my jaws. If I managed to keep my cool, I could control the situation. It would go a little something like this:

INSERT MASSIVE HYSTERICAL FIT HERE....

My reaction? I would simply shut off as I said before, pick my son up out of the shopping cart or off the playground and leave. There was no screaming or pulling of my child's arm (there's a little hold I like to call the straight jacket hold where I would turn his face away from mine so that his back was to my chest and I held him close to me by holding his arms down. May sound freaky but it prevented much flailing about and injury to us both).

I, would then, w/out much expression (for fear that my vein in my forhead would bulge and my eyes would open freakishly wide - a family trait), fight the arched back of a very wirey kid and secure him in his carseat. I would wait until there was quiet and would explain to my child what he did, why it was wrong, etc. We would go home - a natural consequence - especially if we had to leave something fun like the park. The majority of the time he understood, calmed down and peace was restored  - until the next fit:)  In short - that whole scenario SUCKED. 

I remember thinking " Will it always be like this?". Six years later the answer is yes. And no.

Motherhood was sprung on me. I was 26, working happily in my second job and recently accepted to graduate school. My husband and I lived happy lives - both doing our own things after work and connecting at night over dinner or a glass of wine. The day I received my class schedule something was off. It was August 13, 2004. I clearly remember eating my lunch at my desk and feeling totally soured after my daily dose of yogurt. Odd. I remember my giant desk calendar staring AT ME. No...wait...five, six, seven days late? Mistake. I remember thinking I would just take a test to see the word negative and be done with it. We were taking preventative measures, after all! I took the test and was surprisingly nervous. I remember this voice inside saying "Please, God, let it be positive" and then yelling at it. How dare I say that? How dare I think for a second that I WANTED that?!  Not now!!! Now I surely jinxed the test!  Five positive tests and total loss of color from my face later, my husband found me on the floor in the bathroom just staring.  We were going to be parents. I started throwing up the next day...and was ROCKED by nausea for the next 16 weeks. I was too sick to follow through with graduate school and went home immediately after work every night and crashed for two hours on the couch.

And that's just the beginning:)). What followed was a beautiful, bouncing baby boy who was colicky (ie: SCREAMING from 6-9 nightly for waht seemed like forever but was really more like 12 weeks), but then snapped out of it and became VERY verbal, agile, happy and all around WONDERFUL.

The battles today are still of the will. The difference is that now, there's another beautiful, bouncing baby on my hip (who funny enough was ALSO colicky for 12 weeks) and I feel more like my brain is going to split in two when either one, or both, flip out simultaneously. I am much more easily angered. I am much quicker to snap and lose my cool. I am - tired. I am - a mother.

Perspective is the key to staying sane. Catch me on a good day and I'm taking it all in stride. Catch me on a bad day and I just want to close both of the boys' bedroom doors - maybe throw a Cheerio or two in with them- and go hide under my covers. If I stop and listen and observe long enough I realize that I have two very small humans who NEED me. Who love me. Who can't really exist without me right now. That's when the pride of motherhood comes in. These are MY children, my babies - don't mess with them or I WILL come after you with a blunt object:).


So now, in the years before girls, before the demand for certain clothes and shoes, before my boys think I know nothing at all, I will stop. I will pray. I will be thankful for the two little hearts that need molding and spirits that need leading. I will be reviewing all of my older brother's WWF videos to see if I can finally master that sleeper hold:)