Bad Mom
I sat, hunched over in my seat, overwhelmed.
My hot tears traced lines in my carefully applied make up, and it nagged at the back of my mind, since I'm one of those perfectionist types, and I blotted my face with the sleeve of my car coat.
The kids were screaming, hitting, pinching, clawing, crawling, sliding, yelling, accusing, and basically having a mosh party in the back of my suburban, ignoring my quiet pleas that they would put their seat belts on.
I felt defeated. A failure. A mess.
I shouldn't be a mom, I thought. I'm no good at this. I've ruined these little balls of clay. Moulded them into something horrific, and baked them with my searing-hot temper... and it's all my fault.
Suddenly a cry was heard from the back seat as my eldest daughter struggled her way to the top of the heap.
"MOM! MOM! UGGGGHHHHH! MOM DOESN'T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING!"
Surprisingly, this didn't snap me out of my deep-rooted issues, and only made me cry harder.
No, I thought to myself. I care a lot...I care infinitely.
After an hour of sitting in the parking lot with the car on, waiting for them to comply with my desire that they wear their seat belts, they finally decided that they had enough of sitting in the confined space, and 4/5ths of them sat.
Except Lily.
She had stayed closest to me during the whole thing, and was, I think, the only one who noticed I was weeping.
When it all erupted, she initially honed in on the bag of candy that was next to me. She grabbed the bag of gummie Life Savers that was in the console and snatched a handful of the gooey sweets. She did a double take when she saw me, and then carefully put them all back, except for one, which she offered to me. I kept staring at the steering wheel, so she popped it in her mouth and jumped into the backseat fray.
After everyone got bored of their shenanigans, they started to settle down and want to go home. Lily was still having fun, though.
She escaped her brother and sister, who were attempting to force her into her seat, and kept grabbing my arm, and exclaiming, "No! I want to be with you!"
I then heard every threat, every demand and every snappy word I had ever said to my children in the past as Joshua and Eva attempted to get Lily to sit in her seat.
It was enlightening.
It's amazing how silly angry people sound. And how out of control.
It reminds me of that saying: Profanity is the weak mind's attempt to express itself forcefully.
I have a new one: Anger is the weak character's attempt to inspire compliance.
Neither work.
And both look foolish.
I would like to say that I managed to salvage the day, but I didn't.
I think yesterday will be imprinted with a big, fat "FAIL" stamp on my eternal record. I can just imagine the poor, overwhelmed little scribe of an angel shaking their head as they wrote down my day and what I did with it. And I can imagine them looking sadly down at their red stained hands, and then sighing wistfully as they look at the orderly (and unused) stack of gold star stickers that wait in anticipation of a good day.
At least at the end it will say, "And then she fed them pizza, said prayers with them, told them she loved them (and really meant it) and kissed them all good night."
Maybe that will count for something.
My hot tears traced lines in my carefully applied make up, and it nagged at the back of my mind, since I'm one of those perfectionist types, and I blotted my face with the sleeve of my car coat.
The kids were screaming, hitting, pinching, clawing, crawling, sliding, yelling, accusing, and basically having a mosh party in the back of my suburban, ignoring my quiet pleas that they would put their seat belts on.
I felt defeated. A failure. A mess.
I shouldn't be a mom, I thought. I'm no good at this. I've ruined these little balls of clay. Moulded them into something horrific, and baked them with my searing-hot temper... and it's all my fault.
Suddenly a cry was heard from the back seat as my eldest daughter struggled her way to the top of the heap.
"MOM! MOM! UGGGGHHHHH! MOM DOESN'T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING!"
Surprisingly, this didn't snap me out of my deep-rooted issues, and only made me cry harder.
No, I thought to myself. I care a lot...I care infinitely.
After an hour of sitting in the parking lot with the car on, waiting for them to comply with my desire that they wear their seat belts, they finally decided that they had enough of sitting in the confined space, and 4/5ths of them sat.
Except Lily.
She had stayed closest to me during the whole thing, and was, I think, the only one who noticed I was weeping.
When it all erupted, she initially honed in on the bag of candy that was next to me. She grabbed the bag of gummie Life Savers that was in the console and snatched a handful of the gooey sweets. She did a double take when she saw me, and then carefully put them all back, except for one, which she offered to me. I kept staring at the steering wheel, so she popped it in her mouth and jumped into the backseat fray.
After everyone got bored of their shenanigans, they started to settle down and want to go home. Lily was still having fun, though.
She escaped her brother and sister, who were attempting to force her into her seat, and kept grabbing my arm, and exclaiming, "No! I want to be with you!"
I then heard every threat, every demand and every snappy word I had ever said to my children in the past as Joshua and Eva attempted to get Lily to sit in her seat.
It was enlightening.
It's amazing how silly angry people sound. And how out of control.
It reminds me of that saying: Profanity is the weak mind's attempt to express itself forcefully.
I have a new one: Anger is the weak character's attempt to inspire compliance.
Neither work.
And both look foolish.
I would like to say that I managed to salvage the day, but I didn't.
I think yesterday will be imprinted with a big, fat "FAIL" stamp on my eternal record. I can just imagine the poor, overwhelmed little scribe of an angel shaking their head as they wrote down my day and what I did with it. And I can imagine them looking sadly down at their red stained hands, and then sighing wistfully as they look at the orderly (and unused) stack of gold star stickers that wait in anticipation of a good day.
At least at the end it will say, "And then she fed them pizza, said prayers with them, told them she loved them (and really meant it) and kissed them all good night."
Maybe that will count for something.
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