A Mom Day

So, it all started one day when I was having a normal "mom" day, where I begin thinking about ever tiny flaw I have as a mom. Usually I really let this stuff bother me and my husband has to piece me back together when I break down and crumble into bits over it. But not today satan, you are not going to win this battle! I am going to be strong! I am going to keep it together! I am going to be super mom and prove to my kids that I am better than just falling apart into a crumbly mess on the floor over my feelings and self sabotage! I am going to..... Just say yes to everything!?

My son (he is Sir Talksalot; has all the questions, has all the theories, knows all the answers *so he thinks* and knows a better way to do anything you are doing then the way you are currently doing it)... So he comes up to me and I am on the couch in a total daze, staring off at the tv like I am watching it but not, while its playing Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on repeat for the toddler that is unloading every single toy in her toy box onto the floor, the couch, her small trampoline that takes up half of our living room and even into her ride on hot pink Jeep that sits conveniently right in front of the television (and we have a 70" tv, but that toddler head hasn't looked so big until its blocking half of it)... And he says, "Mom, can I play on my Occulus?" Without even thinking about it, without even thinking about the fact that he woke up with a total garbage attitude this morning with me, without thinking about the fact that he hasn't done his chores or his homeschool school work for the day; I said "Yes". He looked as shocked as I felt when the word came out of my mouth! But it was already too late, I had already said it, he already got excited and the whole thing was in motion with him running to his room, skipping over the toy pile that is completely in his way and could just be scooped up along the way, but that would require me to stop him, tell him (which he already knows of course), slow him down from his precious Occulus, and go right back to being "Bad Mom", so I let it go, and let him go happily.

I sat there really puzzled with myself, with mixed emotions on the entire scenario thinking... And realizing... He didn't have a story to babble for 20 minutes on while I try to pay attention but in fact its SO boring and out of my realm of knowledge that its almost impossible to pay attention through the whole thing and I end up nodding and "uh huh", "oh yea?" through the entire babble mission. He didn't have any further questions? He didn't have an argument to my answering of his question? He didn't have something to say about "why he should be able to play" or tell me how he has some competition to do for this YouTube legend he adores so much, or anything!? Why, that was SO simple! With just a thoughtless, "Yes".

And so it began...

My oldest daughter comes in the living room and sits down on the couch after feeding the horses (her morning chore is to feed the 2 horses that we have, make sure they have water, give them fly spray if they need it, make sure they're alive and not injured, etc), plops down is more like it and says, "Mom, I fed the horses, can I play on my phone?" and another thoughtless "Yes" came out of my mouth. Again, the look of surprise came across her face (not that I am hard on my kids or say no to everything, but that I didn't run through her chores or homework or anything asking her if she had done any of it), and she was off to her room to get her phone!

Here I sat, again, toddler now looking at me like "what is happening? Everyone goes up, talks to mom, and leaves running and happy", obviously this is a game she needed to try out! So the toddler comes over to me and climbs up my legs onto the couch and sits down at the very edge of the couch backwards, facing me. Of course I scoot her little butt closer to me and farther from the edge to keep her from falling off the couch, hitting her head, and all of us having a bad day because then the toddler would be in a bad mood. ***If toddler isn't happy, NOBODY gets to be happy!*** She looks at me with the most serious face you could possibly put on a toddler and starts babbling this gibberish that I can only describe as a character from the game "The Sims" and even though I have absolutely no idea what she is babbling about, she is very seriously into whatever it is she is saying and really wanting me to be in to it too. So I am doing the usually head nods and "oh yea?'s" and all of that, giving her facial expressions like I am understanding anything she is saying. And then she stops and just looks at me... As if she is waiting for an answer... "Hmmm" I think to myself... Then I say, "Yes?" and she gets THE cutest smile on her face, ever! so I say "Yes!" and she is on a mission to crawl back down "safely" off the couch, dredge through her toy mess and stops at her baby gate that runs across the giant archway to the dining room (I mean, we have to keep this toy chaos to one room, right?) and screams, "OOOOOUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTT!!!!!!" and then "OOOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPEEEEEEENNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!" and I realized, whatever it was she was asking for is outside of the chaos room. So I go over, open the gate for her and she says in the sweetest, most loving (and no longer demon voice) voice "Dank youuuuuu" and is off again, waddling her diaper butt through the dining room and disappearing into the kitchen. I hear her little fat feet hitting the kitchen floor making splatting sounds as she walks, as if someone was dropping buttered down pancakes one at a time and letting them just slap the floor. Splat splat splat. I decide I better sneak behind her a safe distance so I can see where she is going. She makes a pitstop at her sisters doorway to her bedroom where she is nose deep into her phone and says "Bye! Bye! Wibber!" and has that serious face again; letting you know that she is expecting you to understand what she is saying. The oldest daughter, not even listening to her says, "Byeeee" and the toddler says, "Bye, wuv yuuuu, byeeee" waving and walking towards the laundyroom. Once there, she takes a hard left into my bedroom, bends down like she weighs 500 pounds, making this noise like its so far away and so hard to bend down; grabs one light up cowboy boot and one unicorn rain boot and turns back around and heads back out of the bedroom door towards me. She looks at me, same serious face only now its also on a serious mission, and says, "Shoooooos, shoooooos, ONNNNNNN" and throws the shoes at me. So I bend down and am surprised to see that she somehow has managed to grab one of each of the mismatched boot pairs but the correct foot to complete a pair; instead of arguing with her, fighting with her to change them or go find the other one of either pair... I just help her put those babies on. She makes all the noises like shes struggling to get them on her feet and then the fat kid noise again as she tries to stand back up from sitting on the ground... She looks at me with serious, determined, woman on a mission face and says, "Bye, wuv youuu, Wibber, byeeeeee" and turns around, walks straight through the laundyroom and towards the backdoor. She gets to the back door, reaches up to barely be able to touch the door knob and starts having a meltdown. "HEPPPPPPPPPP!!!!! HEPPPPPPPPPPP MEEEEEEE!" I come over to help her open the back door and without a thought, manors on point, she says, "Dank youuuuuu" and walks out the door like a big kid. I of course follow behind her a distance, closing the door behind me and she gets to the gate where the backyard ends and the driveway begins and she turns around with her expecting face now and says "Open? Wibber" and points towards the horses. Then it all clicks.... She is headed out to play with the horses (one of their names is River) and instead of calling them horses, every one of them individually is "Wibber". I really have got to figure out toddler lingo better, could have saved me tons of time here, that will be followed by heartache when we are more than tired and still don't want to leave "Wibber" in the field where she lives and come back in the house eventually. I scoop her up and head to the horses to let her pet them and babble her sim talk to them like they understand her and fulfill that toddler happiness meter back up. She's extatic!

Once that battle is complete, I take the toddler back into the house and tell her that we are going to make lunch and ask her if she's hungry... She says, "HADOG" so in my non arguing mood I am in, I nod "yes" to her and we head in to make her hotdogs. While making her hotdogs and getting her in her highchair, fight with the straps and ridiculous amount of locks to hook her down into the chair "safely", get the chair tray ready, hotdogs cooled enough to avoid the "Hot" meltdown I don't have patience for today; the son comes into the kitchen... The oldest daughter must have heard "everyone hanging out in the kitchen" and joins us as well. He is babbling about his game, talking and talking and talking about "this kid did this, that kid did that, this kid doesn't know how to do this, that kid says bad words and does everything wrong and doesn't listen to you when you try to help him do it right...." Daughter is telling me about her best friend that has a volleyball game in some town near us, on some day this week and somewhere in there hard hinting about wanting to go to it. Toddler is smearing the hotdog pieces through the ketchup "pool" and making the worlds biggest ketchup mess on her face; but don't worry, she wipes her sleeve to her brand new white shirt right across that face to get that ketchup off she feels! I look at the son, cut him off a little bit and say, "Are you guys hungry?" Looking back and forth between the two, the son says, "Not really" and the daughter says, "YES, I'M STARVING!" They are luckily old enough now and we homeschool so we have them cook their own lunches usually; just something simple like leftovers from the night before or Mac N Cheese with tuna and peas or a sandwich and chips. She starts working on her lunch while son is right back where he left off in his babbling about these children (which we don't know them personally, or know where they are in this world), this game, and he's throwing his arms around to really describe the situation; I cut him off abruptly, "Geez! What is that smell?! Did you put deodorant on today sir?" He laughs like its actually a funny thing I just asked, or a joke maybe, and says, "NOPE!" proud as can be. I demand he goes and does that, "And brush your teeth while you're in there!" I yell as he's heading into the bathroom. Mind you, he hasn't stopped babbling his story, only now he is in the bathroom, babbling to himself about the kids, the Occulus, etc. like anybody can hear what he's actually saying or that anyone would still be listening if they could?! How this kid talks so much is beyond me; maybe its the age... Afterall he is 14. Daughter is 12. Toddler is 19 months. <--Yes, I definitely was surprised to find out I was starting parenthood all over again from the beginning too after its been 10 years since I changed a diaper or had to do anything baby related at all.

When son finishes the deodorant/teeth brushing session after about a whole 30 seconds (and we all know that was nearly enough time to fix that powerful stench that was coming from him), he stands there looking at me like he is expecting an answer... Like somewhere in that babbling in the other room through the toothbrushing and everything I was asked a question and he is now patiently waiting for the answer. I know that if I ask him what; I am going to have to hear alllllll that whole story again, but have to actually pay attention to it all this time and wait for the question at the very end... "Nah" I think to myself.... "Yes" I reply to him without any hesitation so he doesn't catch on that I was not listening to him for the past... What feels like hours of babbling... He gets that big smile again and runs off to his room. Me, not knowing at all what I just said yes to, and absolutey exhausted with life, I don't even have the energy to care what I said yes to... I mean, how bad could it really be? The boy loves his games, gaming, Occulus, computer, computer anything, his room, Minecraft, the YouTube legend he follows and the scientist guy that use to work for NASA and is super smart and also makes YouTube videos too... It'll be fiiiiiinnne.

I turn around toward the toddler at the exact moment of her plate flying into the air, ketchup sliming right off the side of it and flying into a totally different direction... It feels like the slowest motion on earth, like you see in the movies and I am running in snail speed to catch the plate when it is about halfway to the ground (I have those mom cat like instincts and swiftness SOMETIMES) and that ketchup that was flying into the other direction... yea, that hits me right in the face, barely missing my mouth it hits the side of my mouth and the rest of it hits my chin, splats all over my shirt and one glob manages to separate and fall right onto my new white cheetah print loafers that I love more than any shoe I have ever owned. :(

I unstrap the million straps and locks the toddler is in in this highchair, scoop her up under her arm pits and hold her away from me like a bomb that is about to explode, trying to keep anymore ketchup mess from getting all over me and decide... Meh, I'm already covered... and put her on the hip and walk to my room with what is left of my dignity. I grab a diaper, the whole package of wipes, pull a clean outfit out of the closet and begin cleanup on project toddler. Once I get her all cleaned up, I have to trick her into "wanting to get in her bed for a nap like a big girl" (even though sometimes she wants to be a baby so we have to flip the script a little bit and make it so she's being a good baby and getting in her big baby bed) she realizes she doesn't have her blanket in the half second its been since you pulled your arms back out from underneath her, "Banket" she says and I grab the blanket and snuggle it up on her perfectly and comfortably, just the way she likes. Instantly, without hesitation, she screams in the demon voice again like you've done something wrong "BINKYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!" How can one toddler human go from being the sweetest, most well-mannered, adorable little girl to a demon in a blink of an eye? Well I don't want to die today, so I grab the binky (that I despise more than anything she has and want that thing gone so badly! I have tried every idea, trick, etc. you can find online and she still won't let go of it or forget it or give it up, nothing) and give it to her. She smiles her sweet little smile, letting me know that my sweet toddler is back and we both say "Night night" to each other, I finish tucking her in and head out of the room so she can nap.

I walk into the war zone, aka livingroom and see that situation needing attention before she wakes back up and starts it all over again. I pick up the papers and whatever random things she has torn apart in her "Playing" and go into the kitchen to get a trash bag. I'm super exhausted with life still, haven't gotten myself cleaned back up after the hotdog fight and drained... Maybe I will nap on the couch after I clean this all up, just until the toddler wakes back up. I grab a trash bag out of the drawer and turn around quickly to see my hair from the back of my head in front of my face, hanging, dangling, stuck.... In a stinking sticky fly trap!!!! I finally get that disgusting mess untangled and storm back to the livingroom/warzone to finish picking up the toys and in the front door walks the husband! Looking absolutely glowing and beautiful and full of life, his amazing smile disappears really quickly when he makes eye contact with me and I have a trash bag in one hand, hair a knotted up mess all over the place like I ran through a cornfield backwards, ketchup on my face, shirt and shoes... Or is that blood? He can't tell, the livingroom literally looks like bombs went off and there are no kids in sight. He says, "What happened?" and I crumble into a million pieces all over the floor in front of him.

If anyone in this world ever deserves a prize for most patience; it is my husband. Sure, sometimes I probably deserve a prize for surviving a day in my life but this man... He deserves the world for putting up with me! All the feelings and emotions and struggles I bottle up throughout the day, clenching on to whatever strength I can find within myself to keep going and make it through the day with 1 teenage boy, 1 preteen girl and a toddler angel demon; while managing chores, and homeschooling the older kids... I am positive, that I am nothing but an emotional trainwreck by the time he is done working for the day. I can only imagine how insane he thinks I am, how insane I must look?! When he walks in and has that beautiful smile, and its just wiped off his face instantly with a mess of a livingroom, mess of a kitchen from lunch dishes I never got to, homeschool didn't get done today because I didn't enforce it, no chores got done today because I didn't keep reminding the two teens that should be able to do their chores knowingly without being reminded. It absolutely crushes me and makes me feel like such a failure; a failure as a mom and a failure as a wife. In the movies you see this beautiful woman, dressed up in a her beautiful dress, hair done all up perfectly pinned, makeup mastered and so on point its painful, house is spotless, dishes done, laundry done, dinner ready and smelling so amazing throughout the house and the husband walks in smiling and happy and gives the kids and wife a nice big hug and kiss and they all sit down together smiling and discussing their amazing day they had....

Yea that garbage isn't real life. THIS right here? This story I have shared with you? THIS is real life.... Real... Daily... Ugly Truth Life. And even though I crumble into pieces feeling like a failure, and my husband puts me back together telling me all the sweet and perfect things he loves about me and reminds me that its all ok... I wouldn't change a thing. I wouldn't trade the dirty diapers, screaming fits, or demon ways of the toddler. I wouldn't trade the bad attitude in the morning from being woke up and non stop babbling of random crap and stinky armpits from the boy. I wouldn't trade the non stop eating and not hearing anything you say because she's nose deep in her phone and social life... I wouldn't trade or change any of that for ANYTHING. The movies like to paint this perfect picture and set the expectations really high for everyone; guaranteeing us and sealing the failure in our future. It's all these hard, exhausting, and long days that make me appreciate my ridiculously comfortable and amazing sleep I get through the night, right next to the most amazing man in the world. It reminds me to really appreciate and focus more on the babbling stories my son is trying to tell me about. Make his stories my interest, get in there, listen, respond with real responses. THESE are bonds I build on everyday with him that are literally molding him in to the bright, happy, healthy, brilliant man he will grow into one day... Soon even! My daughter eating all the time and nose deep in her phone with her friend; that's not something to take personal or get upset about, that is something telling me I can spend more time with her one on one and be a friend she needs too. I can take her to her friends game, sit there with her, build on our bond we are building everyday and mold her into the best version of herself she can possibly be. I can put up with anything and not change a thing because it makes me stronger, wiser, and better. I know that I created and am raising 3 humans that will be smart, loving, honest, appreciative and respectful adults one day. I will able to be at peace one day when they've all grown up and become moms and/or dad to their own children and wife/husband to their partner and can look back at their childhood and see all the growing and learning we all did/do together.. Every day.

Don't get down on yourself or beat yourself up for not always listening to your kiddo babble, don't be afraid to say he is babbling. Don't feel judged or like you will be judged for saying your child is acting like a demon when he/she is. Don't feel like you aren't good enough when you just can't keep up with absolutely everything the day has to throw at you. It isn't easy being a mom, ever. There is no book of what to do, and when. It's all trial and error, learn as you go, figure out, Google and YouTube University are my best friends when it comes to figuring out how to do something. Have some faith in yourself and just say "Yes" sometimes without worrying about it so much. "Control your controllables" someone once told me and as much as I hated to hear it at the time; looking back after the situations that I couldn't control but would wear myself out trying to... It's true, it makes perfect sense. Just do what you can. Do YOUR best. Everything else will fall into place.