To say it has been a rough morning is like saying Antarctica is a little bit chilly. If I caught a replay of the events I think I would cringe with shame and it would be a struggle to keep watching.
Eli woke up in a funk. Little things that would normally not even register were catalysts for massive tantrums. The biggest inconvenience to him was, of course, coming to breakfast. Once Dave hightailed it out of the war zone, things didn't exactly improve. In the end, after about three stints in time out and a few yelling matches, I ended up throwing his breakfast in the bin half finished. That was almost 2 hours later.
I was exhausted and Eli was hysterical. I put him back to bed at 9am. I followed suit very soon after, though with Hudson wreaking havoc it didn't take long before I had to haul myself back into reality. The problem: Hudson had found a wet nappy and torn it apart all over the carpet so the little beads of silicon (or whatever they are) were everywhere. I can only hope that none of it made it into his mouth...
I'm not really sure how we pulled it together. I was certainly directing a few symbolic flares upwards and a few expletive laden texts to Dave in the meantime. I think one of the mantras that helped was from a poem I read recently, bluntly entitled "Bitches Get Shit Done". The content of the poem echoed familiarly as I surveyed our situation, it was definitely too early to try and coast until Dave got home, I sure as hell wanted to pull a blanket over my head and block everything out, but I pulled myself up, channeling women who are capable and patient, becoming them in the process. And somehow we got there in the end.
Not saying the rest of the day was perfect, I still got cranky and controlling with the kids as we tried to make scones. And I was anything but patient with Eli when he started screaming at me to fix his show as I was gently patting Hudson back to sleep. But we found the magic again. Eli built a shopping center with his Lego, Hudson practiced crashing his cars and endlessly followed around a soccer ball, making oooh and ahhh noises as he went. We managed a quick trip to the shops to get jam for our scones and both boys actually played very nicely together most of the time.
Motherhood is bloody hard sometimes. There is no other job on earth that pushes you to such extremes, particularly when you have high expectations of yourself and issues with control. I hate it when I fail, when I get 'growly' at Eli and crack it at something that is objectively not even a big deal. The mirror glaringly reflects all my faults and a whisper constantly tries to convince me that I'm screwing my kids up with every outburst.
Most of the time I channel my energy into frenetic cleaning so that at least I can feel in control of something. Today I tried not to do that but it was really tough. I did do a bit of cooking instead but hopefully that is more redeeming as it involves the kids too, and, come to think of it, forces me to release my control to let them help.
Despite the absolute shemozzle of our morning, I do consider myself overwhelmingly lucky to have two kids, let alone ones as cheeky, endearing, cute and charming as Eli and Hudson. And my failures are a good reminder of the fact that I have no hope of doing this motherhood thing without a hell of a lot of divine help.
I know that God forgives me for screwing up, but that is not what is still hanging over my head...I forgive myself for failing...Man, that is hard to say.
Ok time for some photos to remind me that life is not like this all the time!
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