For the Days When Things Are Rough.

Today was apparently Someone Must Be Screaming At All Times Day. Normally, I can handle those sorts of days remotely well, but it's been a long week month six months, with not a lot of sleep mixed in. I knew Justin had to work late and I had to do the whole dinner & bedtime thing solo, and I was just feeling desperate. Desperate for quiet. Desperate to not be touched. Desperate for some recognition or appreciation or sleep.

We don't have a double stroller, so when I'm feeling touched-out and cooped-up like I was today, getting in the car is really the only option. So I grabbed the kiddos, and we went for a drive. Since just after college, when I'm most angsty, I tend to listen to either Sublime, or a little Christian band called Byword. But at this point in my life, it's easier to forgo the Sublime, and not have to worry about when my kiddo might start singing "Wrong Way." So. I listened to I Cry. On repeat. I drove for a half an hour--to church and back three or four times.


And at one point during the drive, before they both calmed down and Becca finally fell asleep (also before I turned the music up really loud and started singing at the top of my lungs),  I found myself thinking, 'I kinda understand those moms who just run away. I always used to hear about them, and wonder how someone got to be that crazy, but I think now I know.' 

Then, I thought, 'Um. That's some pretty extreme thinking. This is probably one of those things that I should never ever, under any circumstances tell someone that I actually thought.' And yet, here I am writing it for all the world to see a few hours later...so that went well, clearly. No, but really. I know I'm not the only mom who has felt like she doesn't necessarily want to run away forever, but that a day or two might be nice. God forbid we say it out loud though, because then we may seem ungrateful. Because there are so many people who have it worse. And that's true, of course. But sometimes I wish that a friend had pulled me aside back when I was pregnant with Becca and whispered, "It will be amazing. But it will also be really really exhausting and hard. The two aren't mutually exclusive. It's okay to not love every second of every day."

So this is me, pulling you aside. It's hard. There is a tiredness unlike any tiredness I've ever experienced. At this point, I'm so tired that even a good night's sleep is a curse, because rather than rejuvenating me, it only serves to remind me just how tired I am.

There is laundry and cleaning that never gets done because 33% of your day is spent feeding one child, 33% of your day is spent trying to toss together meals, cleaning up pee and/or spit-up, doing laundry, and have a coherent conversation with your spouse, and the other 33% is spent playing with the toddler child, trying to make up for the other 66% of the day that you weren't readily available. And yet somehow, when the toddler is asked what she knows about mothers during the Children's Message at church on Mother's Day, she will STILL reply, "My mom NEVER plays with me. She is always too busy."

{Yes, I cried.}

The point is...sometimes, it's hard. Sometimes you may feel under appreciated. Under dressed. Under loved. Under caffeinated. Under prepared. Sometimes you may feel like you're in it alone. And when we feel like we're in it alone, like everybody else has a handle on things and can seem to manage both basic housekeeping and hygiene just fine while I'm over here swinging through Taco Bell for lunch and trying to remember when the last time I took a shower was...when we feel alone that way, it's harder. You're not alone. Whether at 3am or while your toddler is melting down in the middle of Target. There are days that suck, and that's okay to feel and say. 

There are SO MANY good moments. We all know this. But it still doesn't mean that there won't be long, hard days where you feel like nothing is going right and you just want to crawl back in bed. That's why the brilliant article "To Parents of Small Children" resonates with so many of us. It's the truth. There's good. There's hard. They often co-exist in this thing called parenting. And that's okay.

There's days where I lose it. Thankfully, there's grace, laughter, smiles, an occasional margarita, and moments that make your heart feel so full it might burst mixed in as well.

If you're in the good, soak it up and file it away for the harder days in the future. If you're in the hard, take a breath and do what you've got to do to get through the day. However you're feeling today? Just know that you're not alone.