Sunday was another pretty lazy day, but my pain was mostly gone and it wasn't raining, so I took the kids to a corn maze. There was some whining from one of my children and he just wanted to stay home and play video games. I told him that wasn't an option and we went and had a nice time. It had taken a lot of energy points for me to go out that day, and I ended up taking a nap on the couch that evening. We ate leftovers and the boys foraged for snacks. I sent them to start getting ready for bed and walked to the kitchen to turn off the lights and found it a disaster area. Wrappers and dirty dishes all over the counter. A pickle jar with one pickle left in it. A bunch of random crap. I was so tired and so grumpy and I was in no mood to ask the kids to clean it that night, so I wrote them a note on the white board they look at every morning. It said something like "Boys! Seriously!! Clean up the kitchen. None of that stuff is my mess. Please take care of your crap. And empty the dishwasher." That was the general idea anyway.
Monday morning I woke up and just had no motivation to get out of bed. The boys nearly always come in and give me a snuggle before starting on their day. One child brought me a cup of tea. I think I mentioned something about the kitchen. They were like "sure, sure," and then they were off. I was just tired. I didn't want to fight anymore. I didn't want to remind them that they need to be responsible for their own messes. I didn't want to be a nag. I didn't want to have to stand there looking at the stupid mess while they took care of it. I just wanted to stay in bed. Then the mom guilt started in. I should have been with them. I should be doing some school with them. I should get my butt out of bed. I could hear them playing nicely together and I thought that was a good thing since I was being a stay-in-bed-mom. I reached out to a friend for support and she said I should be fine taking the day off if I needed it and that she would bring me snacks if I needed them. Another friend said to power through it. I told him I needed to have a cry first. I think sometimes things just stack up and stack up and I hit a wall of "Holy crap, it's the same thing all the time. I'm having the same stupid fights with my strong-willed child nearly daily. And I'm doing this parenting thing by myself and I feel super disrespected by said child and I don't know how to fix it. And I'm tired. So, so tired." Like I said at the beginning of this post, most of the time, I love my life. Every day I love my children and I want to work at helping shape them into lovely adults. But other days, I want to give up. It's hard work, and when I don't see progress, it's hard to stay motivated. But I won't freaking give up and let them raise themselves, because that's not an acceptable option for me. "Nevertheless, she [effing] persisted." I eventually made it out of bed after having a long phone call with one of my favorite people. I hadn't talked with her for a while so catching up with her pulled me away from my self-pity enough that I could get up. I came downstairs to the kitchen that was still a huge mess. I was really disheartened, but I got the kids down there working and then I swept the floor and threw some more crap away and felt better. The day ended pretty well. I felt pretty sure that the next day would be more productive.
Well, I woke up today and did feel pretty good. I had a list of things I needed to get done and I did them. Then I got trapped in a project I made for myself (moving files from one drive to another. It doesn't really matter, but I got into it and couldn't stop). So I was again, trying to parent from my bedroom, which isn't quite as effective with young children as you might think. I reminded them that they are required to do some school work every day and directed them to some things they could do independently while I worked on my computer some more. They did manage to stay on task for about 30 minutes which was pretty good. The rest of the day went pretty well until dinner. I was making something I knew the kids don't love, but it's a meal, right? We also had leftover ramen. I offered them the option of leftovers or the thing they don't love. Anyway, long story short, there was more yelling during dinner. I get so frustrated trying to explain why it's important to not eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch and dinner. I wasn't terribly kind and I told one of my children "make whatever you want. I'm not sitting here anymore. Wash your dishes when you're done. I'm going to my room and I kind of don't want to see you anymore tonight." It wasn't my best moment, but I chose to leave the area so it wouldn't escalate further. All the while, feeling that same heaviness of "I don't know how to help this child. I'm a terrible mother."
I must say, I know I'm not a terrible mother. I really do. And I have a lot of people telling me that I'm doing a great job and I appreciate that so much. However, they aren't there listening to me yell at a tiny human who really can't help being who he is. It's my job to teach him and give him the life skills he needs. I just checked out some books that I hope will give me some skills to know how to parent more effectively.
I was in my room, watching old home videos of the kids when they were little. My gosh they were so cute and it was fun to relive some of those moments. The boys watched a bunch with me. While watching those videos I felt more of "I'm not having fun being a mom right now. I want to get back to that." I'm in such a heavy, guilt-heavy place right now. I talked to my friend tonight (the one I talk to every night, because he's a pretty amazing friend), and after he listened to me vent and whine and cry, he helped me come up with some solutions to some of the recurring problems I'm having with my kids. Having a plan and some action steps is always helpful. I'm hopeful about tomorrow. I will start getting out of bed earlier (like before 10) and I will do more than sit around all day. I will set up some structure with the kids about expectations for school and general home life. I will eat healthy food. I will breathe deeply. I will love and hug my children and keep going.
We took these last week, before I fell into my funk.
