Trying

Dear Kids,

Today has not been a good day.

It started out great - Kori slept 8 hours straight last night (yippee!) and then went back to sleep for nearly another 4 hours not long after she woke up. However, that actually has been part of the problem.

See, I had all of these plans for what we might do today. It's a beautiful day here, so I thought we might walk to the park, play on the playground - maybe even take lunch with us and have a picnic. But since Kori was sleeping so well, I hesitated to wake her. So instead Jenny watched Sesame Street & I worked. Then we looked for other things to do. I pumped and flossed my teeth. We read books and I don't even know what. Then Kori woke up.

She was naturally hungry at this point, but this is also when things really started to head south. See, it was lunch time for the rest of us too, and while I was feeding Kori (and thus unable to effectively get up and chase Jenny around the house), chaos took over.

Jenny, sweetheart, please know that I love you dearly, but you can sometimes get on my last nerve. You pulled out magazines, envelopes, and shredded bits of paper from the recycling. (Oh, and ate a few pieces of shredded paper.) You pulled cushions off of chairs, threw books and toys all over the floor, pulled out cookbooks and recipes from a box, tormented a cat, and the final straw - climbed up onto the arm of a rocking chair. Every time I managed to get you down (using one arm & a leg - I should be an acrobat) you laughed maniacally and headed right back. I'm sorry if got a little rough at times in pulling you back, but you were really starting to make me mad!

I know that in the grand scheme of things this is nothing. In fact your behavior is entirely normal, understandable, and predictable at this point. It isn't new. So why does it still get to me? I feel guilty that we didn't get to have our fun morning at the park (though I'm glad I hadn't told you what I was planning). But I'm also aware that it's essentially by my choice that we didn't get to do that. I could have awoken the baby - she probably would have slept in the stroller anyway. But I didn't. I don't know why.

Lunch wasn't much better though. You always want whatever I'm having (again, nothing new here) - maybe you're just testing me to see if I'll actually give you whatever you want if you scream loudly enough? I don't know. By the end there was food everywhere and both of you were screaming.

All of this is perfectly normal on the part of both of you, so why does it get to me so much? I think maybe when you scream & cry I feel like I'm messing up or making a mistake somehow - maybe even hurting you. I know that's silly - in fact the opposite is sometimes true. I'm going to have to make decisions that are in your best interest - but you won't like them. You'll probably both scream and cry and tell me I'm not fair and that you hate me. But I'll know those decisions are the right thing to do.

The screaming & crying & throwing things & making giant messes also make me feel like I'm failing as a parent somehow. Like if I were a "good" mom you would never do those things. Again, totally irrational, right? You're babies for crying out loud! All of that is what you do!

So, I have no deep thoughts or nifty way to wrap things up here. I just needed to process the morning/afternoon's events a little bit to pull myself out of this feeling like I suck. Maybe one day reading this will help you realize the same thing, or maybe this post is just one to skip in the scrapbook. Who knows? I do know that this mom thing is testing me and teaching me in ways I never could have expected. Not sure I like that sometimes, but I think I'll end up being a better person for it.

Love always-

Mama