the struggle – The Saucy Mama

Some days, I feel like I have this mom thing down. Everyone sleeps through the night — not in their own bed — but through the night nonetheless. Then there are other days when everything I thought I knew goes flying out the window and I realize I’m Jon Snow beyond the Wall.

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Thursday was unseasonably warm for mid-February, so I took J to the park. As we were walking up to it, I overheard two money talking about how they just wished their kids would listen sometimes. “Mom just needs a win.”

And isn’t it something how little it takes for we moms — and dads — to feel like we’re ok. That we’re on the right track and everything really is going to be ok. Right now, as parents to tiny humans, it’s hard for everything we do wrong to feel like an epic Bay of Pigs level failure.

It occurred to me the other day that the reason we think our failures are so epic is because when our kids feel, they feel BIG. That morning, for example, a different van picked C up for school. The seatbelt on his usual seat was broken — the strap that allows me to loosen and tighten the straps was broken — and this was unacceptable to young C. He had a total meltdown. Was damn near inconsolable. It took about fifteen minutes to get him into buckled into another seat.

After the bus was gone, I talked myself down for calling the bus company and yelling at the dispatcher about the broken seatbelt. I also talked myself down from posting a rant on my town’s mom’s page. Instead l, I took a deep breath, messaged C’s teacher in the app to let her know he’d be coming in hot so that they would be prepared to console him. Then I took J to the park.

What I’ve learned in the almost five years that I’ve been mom-ing is — can’t believe C will be five soon😬🥰 — if my reactions are as big as his, then we’ll never grow. Him as a boy who needs to learn how to manage emotions and me as his mother who needs to teach him how.

So yea, some days you’ve got it all together. Some days you don’t. And some days, it starts well only to fall apart and come back together again…and then maybe fall apart again by bath time. It’s the cycle we live in now as parents that won’t end until…we’ll I don’t think it ever ends.

***inhales deeply, long exhale, followed by a looooooong sip of wine.***

Last Sunday, I hit the ceiling of my patience. Between a lack of sleep and feeling overall run down, I couldn’t deal with the screaming-jumping-running-around of it all. I locked myself in my office for a few hours to snack and decompress. And it got me thinking. There is so much to love about being a mom. There is also so much to hate about it. And it really is ok to hate some of it. Motherhood asks that we give a lot more than we get most days. Sometimes it’s a little bit too much. The dichotomy of motherhood is the strangest mix of joy and sorrow, love and frustration there is.

Here’s my love/hate of motherhood list.

Love: All the cuddles, squeezes, and kisses. There are moments in the day where a surprise squeeze from my boys is exactly what the doctor ordered and it makes everything feel better.

Hate: All the cuddles, squeezes, and kisses. Then there are days when they are hanging off me like a necklace. Clinging to me like the barnacle on the bottom of a boat. It all feels like too much and I just don’t want to be touched anymore. To the point where, when A comes home from work, I don’t have enough affection left to show him love.

Love: Watching them learn new things and explore the world around them. One of the amazing things about having kids is learning about the world through their eyes. Their enthusiasm and pride after they accomplish something new. Like, when J says, “It worked!” every time he owes in the potty. EVERY. TIME. Or whenever C figures out how to do something — like opening the child lock we put on the fridge because he kept leaving the door open — and he says, “I did it!” Even when it’s something I don’t want him to do, I love the enthusiasm. It’s infectious.

Hate: How hard it is to keep them teach them about the world and protect them from it at the same time. In a world of police brutality and ALICE drills for pre-schoolers, what are parents supposed to teach their kids about trust? One day you can have lunch and laugh with a friend, the next day you’re running from them in an attempt to save your own life…as a child. How do we teach them how to trust the police when it feels like every other day there’s another story about officer-involved violence against civilians?

Love: The extra purpose in life that having children gives you. I’m not the kind of person who thinks having children makes me superior to anyone who doesn’t. But raising kids is an important job, probably the most important job, we can have. We’re literally molding the future. When every thing else goes away. When you get laid off or divorced or lose people, your little ones are always there. So even when we feel like we have no purpose, they are our purpose.

Hate: Motherhood takes away so much of our autonomy, and sometimes it all feels like too much. Taking care of yourself can sometimes feel like a daunting task. Of course, caring for another person will feel overwhelming at times. Knowing that they are solely depending on you to keep them alive and mold them into good people…sometimes it’s an utter mindfuck. The person you were before you have kids and who you are after are two very different people. In some ways that’s a good thing. In others, we have to give up some of the things that make us feel the most like ourselves.

Motherhood asks a lot of us, and sometimes it feels like it takes without giving. Other times it asks nothing and gives so very much. See, perfect dichotomy.

Tag: the struggle

Wins Will Come, and They Will Definitely Go

The Love & Hate of Motherhood