The Undoing of Not Doing

I feel like a crazy person. Most days I can’t put a cohesive thought together. I also cannot hold a train of thought. I flit from one idea to the next. I’d be an odd sight to some omnipotent viewer, they’d see me stop mid step in a room of my house and change tracks, bending down to pick something up, rearrange, sort, spin around, leave a space only to return, stop and stare. At any one time I might have some trash in my hand I found on the floor that I meant to toss, but on the way to the waste bin, I picked up a dirty sock for the hamper and a toy that needs returning to the play room. I walk around sorting and completely out of sorts.

Here’s the thing. I’m a creative and curious person (I think I am reading four books right now, each a different genre..will I ever finish any of them? I hope so?). I also happen to get the most excitement to do something about those creative urges some time around 10 am. At ten I’ve woken up, the sun is shining, everything seems possible….except actually doing any of the creative things I’m thinking about because my girls need me to feed, clothe, wipe butts, change diapers, organize play dates, play etc. etc. My most inspired time is the exact time when I cannot do anything about it. It is so hard and so frustrating to tear myself away from thoughts of what I want to do, in order to focus on the things I don’t….like play act a superhero for the umpteenth time. So I do all the stuff that needs to be done, but reluctantly and in a scattered way.

And then, by the time I get to the evening, the wondrous time when the kids have fallen asleep, I am so beat I cannot bear the thought of doing anything except lying down somewhere spacing out or sleeping. My brain is fried. Done-zo.

I caught myself this evening, as I cooked dinner, trying to do a million things and actually doing nothing…except cooking a dang meal. The girls were otherwise engaged watching a show (yes, a show. I have surrendered to the occasional show, ok?!) and I suddenly had a hunk of time to myself. This is how it went:

While the curry simmered and the rice cooked, I sat down to read a few pages of the one book I’ve almost finished (it has literally taken me 6 months to read it. No, I’m not kidding and it may be an underestimation). Mid sentence I got inspired to start making the sour kraut I’d bought the cabbage for. So I did that…on the way to the fridge I saw all the rotting bananas and remembered I wanted to freeze them for smoothies later….so I went to the dish rack to get the zip lock I’d cleaned to re-use just for this purpose. As I looked at the kitchen sink I realized that I should probably unload the dish washer to reload with the stuff in the sink…and the kitchen was a little disorganized, I needed to start to really think about where I want everything to go in our beautifully renovated kitchen, but, I think, maybe I should really be putting my mind towards working out the new pricing on photography packages I’ve been wanting to market, I also need to get on-line and see if there are any deals on lenses…I really need some new equipment, wouldn’t it be amazing if there was someone selling what I need for cheap? Gosh it would be great to have a model right now to take some experimental shots in the rain…the girls would never stay still, would they? No, I’d need a model…maybe put out a model call on social media, I’ll have to think of how I’m going to run that…but I’ll have to make a nice graphic first…oh, and I meant to call the school to see if they’ve done their lottery draw yet, I hope we get in…I should try writing everyday, like that author suggested…or maybe just do a blog entry…

Somehow I managed to get bananas in a bag to freeze. Then the almost empty bottle of elderberry in the fridge got me thinking about how I needed to make another batch…but first, the kraut…

I don’t think I ever returned to the book, because my hubs came home starving. Food was hastily set on the table lest he start snacking and thus I fed my barbarians.

All the while I was straining on the inside, thinking about all the photo editing I still had to do…how great it would be to knit something…how I felt an itch to get some paints out and start a canvas…how amazing it would be to sit with a hot tea and read a book to it’s end without falling asleep.

It’s my undoing all this wanting to DO,  but it not being the right time. So I do other things, the necessary things while I dream up ideas that can’t come to fruition. I get irritable. I am not the mommy I want to be because I feel cranky when my “me time” is so rare and seemingly unattainable.

I know that I just need to surrender to what is. Or, what is it? Oh yes: Prioritize. Set aside time. Carve out time.

I know.

What did I do, this evening, after all that not doing the stuff I wanted while doing the stuff that was needed? I paused, mind blank and despairing. And then I thought “Just DO!” So I left the dirty dishes in the sink and pulled my ukulele off it’s hook and I played. I played while my hubs made chocolate cake with the girls and protected my time ( I love you hon). And I was grateful. And it felt good to do. Not just do, but do something I wanted to do, for me.

For a brief period, I undid my undoing, by doing.

 

 

 

S

My Husband is a Dish Breaking Clutz, and It’s the Best Thing That’s Ever Happened to Me ( Okay, That’s a Slight Exaggeration)

First off, he does dishes. His momma raised him right. He is a man of this generation.

He does, however, attack the dishes like they are the enemy. Sometimes, they just outright make him mad. Whatever the reason, he breaks A LOT of dishes. I mean, I haven’t made an actual yearly tally, but it is well over 10 items a year.

I used to despair, even dramatically cry out “AGAAIINNN?!?”

I made snarky remarks about his penchant for breaking things when we were with his family and friends. Talk about passive aggressive. Not pretty.

I sometimes got really angry, thinking he didn’t care, that his carelessness was a sign of disrespect for my things (I am the main cook in the kitchen).

I’d often find that in his shame and disappointment in himself, he’d simply and quietly dump the broken object in the trash and cover it with other things. It was often a treasured ceramic I had made or acquired, something that meant something to me because I am a total collector and memory keeper via objects. I’d be shocked and angry when I happened to find it amidst the kitchen detritus.

I tried to explain to him that he needed to slow down, treat our kitchen stuff like he’d treat his climbing and biking and woodworking gear/tools.

And then I stopped.

First of all, I realized that I felt ashamed of shaming him. He is my partner in life. Yes, his breaking of the objects I hold dear is exasperating. Yes, I can choose to see it as an affront; sometimes I even suspect it is a tactic to get out of doing dishes. But I know that a lot of my reaction is the result of my monkey mind making up stories.

So,throwing him under the bus as a brunt of my mean spirited jabs, trying to coerce him to change via public embarrassment? Not cool. I could not take that shit myself. He is stoic and takes it, doesn’t say anything, but, I knew I couldn’t go on doing that. What would his inner life be? I don’t want to wake up one day and find I’ve silently become his enemy.

So I learned to bite my tongue.

My kids …do I want them to learn to subtly mock in order to get what they want instead of just asking? No sirree bob. Na uh.

I’ve been doing the work of refraining, and every day it gets easier. I feel lighter, more happy. To not hold on to events like they are a slight to me, is liberating.

I guess what I am saying is that, you’ve got to choose your battles. My man is a hard working, earnest, kind, generous human. I want him to feel at home at home. I want him to never feel like he has to hide what he’s done/broken. I want him to love and cherish me and not have that tainted by my bad behavior.

I want him….to still do dishes.

 

S

 

 

Mommy Guilt

I hate to say it, but my least favorite words coming from my toddler’s mouth these days are “mommy, come play with me!!”

When she was preverbal, all I could do was root for her. As she gained language, I was in awe. To hear her ideas was magnificent. I now have a full fledged chatter box. I mean, it is incessant. Some times it’s directed at me, other times it’s her chattering away to the air, telling her story, acting out her fantasies. My hubs watched the interaction of her incessant talk as I tried to cook, tidy and play/engage with her, all with a calm exterior and some enthusiasm in my inflection, said “you’re a saint”. Well, I was having a good moment.

Honestly, sometimes, that reguest, “mommy, play with me” sends chills down my back. I want to throw down and whine “NOOOOOOOOOooooooooo!”

It is tragic, but I am not the imaginative girl I once was. I have such a hard time emersing myself in her world. I mean, it can go on FOREVER. I’m good for the first 5 minutes…if I don’t have a messy house…or laundry, or a list of to-dos hanging over my head.

And then there’s the guilt. I hear personal stories from mom’s who are now grandmother’s who say, the chores are unimportant, play with your kids. I get it, I hear it. But just like them, back in their day, struggling to balance what needed to be done with what their kids needed, they probably had to choose not to play. They probably also felt psychotically irritated too at the request to play. Just sayin’.

My hubs recently said to me, “Just say no. Nothing more to it. You’re the adult, they have to accept it.” I had no words. I wanted that to be true.

He then went on to leave the kitchen while I hid there doing dishes, and was immediately accosted by my three-and-a-half-year old, “Daddy! Play God with me! Daaadddeeee! Play God with me! Daddy….plaaaayyy, Gohhhhd with meee…Daaaaaddddddyyyyyyyy!!!” as he walked silently out the back door to do some weeding.

I must say, I am not sure how that all played out as her little voice vanished into the back yard. I didn’t want to know. And I also couldn’t help giggling at her choice of play…seriously child? Playing God? Where does she get this stuff from?!?!!

I can’t say that I have any answers. On my good days, I will half enthusiastically take on the voice of whatever character she wants to me to play. She seems satisfied with my half aware responses and actions. I’m a warm body, helping to support her imagination, that quite frankly needs little to no additional help.

I wish that I could say I like to play for hours on end. I do, but play is different for me now and I have to accept that. Like my hubs says, I’m an adult. Play is different, my idea of a good time is playing my ukulele with a glass of wine beside me. And yes, my kids are the joy of my life, and I thrill at the sight of these beautiful little people, dashing here and there, squealing with delight, crying at the drop of a hat, gushing with love without prompting. I delight in their cuddles and smooching their squishy faces, tickling their soft bellies, getting punched in the face by their oh so cute (yet surprisingly hard) fists.

But I will give myself the pass on not feeling exactly excited about playing pretend for hours on end. This girls has things to do…adult like things…and I refuse to feel guilty…okay, maybe just a little…

 

 

Am I Ruining My Child?

Today, out of nowhere, my toddler started banging the sheets with her hand until I, with my one year old latched and almost asleep, turned my head to look at her questioningly. She was looking at me with stern eyes and said, “don’t be so loud. You’re waking me up.”

I had, for the past 15 minutes ( much more on other days) been repeatedly asking her to calm her body, close her eyes and not talk.

Now I looked at her with my stern gaze and said, “I don’t understand. You are the one making …” I really didn’t want to get into the who was doing what game, “go to sleep!”

It’s been like this for a while. I know, I should not make nap time the battle ground. The problem is that I am so tired, I am desperate to get the girls down to sleep, and hopefully catch a few winks myself so that I can get through the rest of the day.

But in reality, I need to recognize how great she is doing, because even if she can’t sleep, she stays in her bed, and if she’s talking, she usually does it quietly…pretty damn good for an almost three year old. Unfortunately, when I am in the middle of the struggle to get us all calm, it really irks me and I get worked up…mostly out of disappointment that things aren’t happening the way I’d like.

Well, today was different, it was the first time she was deliberately making noise to get my attention.

She thumped the bed again and in a loud voice said “Stop waking me up!”

I lost it. I was desperate to not wake up the little one. I thumped her bed with my open palm in frustration and an attempt to startle her quickly into silence (this was my first clue), then before she could yell, I grabbed her up and ran out of the room and set her forcefully down onto the floor of the play room, giving in to my initial spike of anger. I could see the tears in her eyes and was immediately full of regret. I do not ever want to physically move my kid out of anger, nor dominate her with my power. I had just, completely lost it.

I hissed at her to calm herself and stop the none sense, that we all needed to rest. I have no idea what other random threat I might have thrown in there. Verbal gibberish.

But of course, after the initially adrenaline and anger had passed, I felt like total shit. She fell asleep quickly after that having been scared into lying still.

I too fell into an uneasy sleep that ended with two nightmares in rapid succession. In the first, I left both my girls sleeping by themselves while I ran outside to gather our picnic food and gear that I had forgotten. Somehow all of our stuff had either been stolen or dispersed across the lawn, so that I had to search far afield for everything. It ended with me running back to the apartment finally to discover my father-in-law had had to comfort the kids because they had awoken alone and were crying. I thought child protective services would be coming.

The next dream had me following my husband on a snow covered road in my car while he walked ahead with the girls in a sled. Somehow a huge truck suddenly backed up right where the girls were and then pulled away quickly. I ran at his truck yelling at the driver and slamming on his window, but he sped away. It was night and car lights illuminated both my girls lying still on the snow covered road, blood on my toddlers leg. I wasn’t sure if they were alive or dead.I was about to scream.

That woke me up.

And I know that it was all precipitated by the turmoil in my head as I tried to figure out how it is that I can just totally lose it like that;  and angry at myself knowing how completely unacceptable it is. I am the adult, I need to be in control of my emotions.

The biggest realization was that this triggering event, while seeming like a random outburst from my kid, was really just her trying out a behaviour that I have demonstrated to her. When she scowls at me, or opens her eyes wide and fiercely, it’s because she’s seen it on my face. And I have smacked the covers. I did it just then, as though mirroring her, but in actuality I had done this, probably, before.  And I have moved her physically, and that is why she does it to her sister. She is merely mirroring back to me what I have done.

I don’t like it. Am I, by example, ruining my kid on some level? How can I expect good behaviour from her when I myself am behaving badly?

When she woke up she joined me on the couch. She was sleepy and sullen. Not very responsive.

I brushed the hair from her forehead. She let me hold her limp, beautiful, capable, tiny hind and kiss it. I pulled her into my lap and kissed her head.

And then I apologized. I said that I was wrong to be mad and that I had done wrong, that mommy’s make mistakes and I would do better.

She looked at me and said, “ok. Because that made me feel…sad.”

I know, it made me sad too. I just kissed her again and held her close.

What is this madness that can overtake me? Motherhood is…so god damn challenging…so amazing and awful…I can feel so full of regret and self loathing while also feeling amazed at what I am capable of by growing, birthing and raising these little human beings.

I will process this and move on; try to forgive myself, and most importantly, do better.

She Speaks for Me

I’m posting the link to this article in lieu of my own blog post because it’s so damn good. So damn good that I might as well give up this whole blogging thing…only I won’t, if only to stay in solidarity with Thorpe…mommies can have creative lives too!

Thanks to my sis who sent the link to me. I feel like every word Rufi Thorpe writes is exactly my experience…minus the writing career…I was almost in tears as I recognized myself in her.

Here it is: Mother, Writer, Monster, Maid

 

 

Cleaning While Angry

I’m pissed.

It’s my own damn fault. I get so excited Friday evening when my hubby comes home and I anticipate some much needed back up. This evening I pushed the idea of baking “troll cupcakes” together as a family – an idea my toddler brewed up after reading a story about a troll who liked cake and which had a recipe on the last page (damn you story books with recipes on the back page!!). I always assign baking to my husband because he likes the sweets and usually can really get behind something like that. And he was a good sport and showed a fair level of enthusiasm for a Friday evening after a long day of work.

Of course, we didn’t have all the necessary supplies, so we hit the grocery store as a family. A quick run turned into an all out shopping event. So, by the time we were home it was getting late and my toddler was excited for cupcakes that hadn’t yet been made and my infant was starting to fuss. My toddler was also hungry, so amidst the chaos of baking supplies, flour everywhere, I also began popping popcorn.

My hubs, not so accustomed to the anarchy and general hullabaloo of a multitasking woman and two rambunctious under-3-year olds, got sort of…frantic.

I decided it was time to plunk them into a sudsy tub to soak off some grime and help them wait for the cupcakes to bake in a more productive and distracting way.

Then, the hubs injures himself in some freak putting-the-beater-bars-into-the beater accident. Turns out, he was at the end of his rope trying to make icing and decided that the best way to finesse an uncooperative beater was to slam it really hard. Well, the result was a cracked beater still missing one of its arms and the hubs with a really badly cut finger.

And he was pissed and said something about not having had a moment to sit down and he couldn’t do this and I would need to put the kids to bed tonight.

So now I am pissed…because I’m thinking…you broke my flippin’ beater, and you are suggesting somehow that this is all my fault? I’m pissed that he didn’t just communicate his needs before it all came to this, and now the fall-out is that I don’t have any down time either, in fact, I need to take on his role as well. Funzies. I don’t do well without fair warning.

So the kids are finally down. Everyone has bathed except me. But screw that, I’m pissed. The house is a flegacking mess and I feel like I have something to prove. I am a productive person, I have not just spent my entire day aimlessly flitting about while the hubs was hard at work. I know he must know this, but now I have something to prove.

Anger cleaning can be very productive. I got the dishes done, tidied the books and the playroom, cleared the kitchen table, ran a load of laundry and bleached some cloths.

Now I finally have a moment to sit and type. I’m exhausted, but I don’t want to go to bed. This is my time goddamnit. Tomorrow will be a clean slate. We’ll speak no more about it, because we both know that this is just how it goes: sometimes, being parents makes us crazy.

I’m glad I got something done in the process.

 

Mommy Loathing

I feel very down on myself this evening. For the past two days I have been a less than stellar mother.

Alright, I was recovering from a bout of food poisoning, so I didn’t have the usual energy (if you can call it that) that I normally have (I am laughing at that sentence already, because really, what energy do I ever have, let’s be honest). And as a bi product of that, I also had a shorter temper.

I have been trying hard to work on my irritability level. A lot of it has to do with not accepting where I am at. There’s a lot of resistance to overcome when you find yourself a stay at home mom (SAHM) and no longer earning money nor finding much time to remember who you are as a person outside of child rearing. Reading Shefali Tsabary‘s books have helped a lot. But staying in that zen “as is” kind of state is not easy. And when I am irritable, I find it very hard to stop in my tracks, take a deep breath and change gears…though isn’t that what we are always asking, in fact demanding, of our children. Hmm.

Let me be clear, I do not yell at my kids. I am never physically aggressive. I want to parent gently, to model the behaviour I want to see them using. But the past few days I have not been able to do that. I’ve caught myself almost whining ” C! PLeeeease stop it” or muttering ” I can’t DO this” under my breath. My poor husband has been a total saint through all of this- he stepped up to take care of our toddler while I was busy hugging the bowl. Seeing my frustration, he’s tried to step in and distract, but often, my kiddo wants me and only me to my great chagrin.

I guess the problem is that, when I am exhausted, I end up repeatedly asking my toddler to stop a behaviour without actually getting my ass up to show her what else she can do, you know, re routing her to a more pleasant activity. Instead I’ve been harping and nagging to no effect until, absolutely frustrated, I show it in my body language and voice.

The low today was when she wanted to find her “tiny bunny” and I said, sort of exasperated, “well why don’t you look for it?”

“I can’t”

“Why can’t you?!”

“I CAN’T”

“Okay, I’ll look for it… … … well, it’s not in the basket”

“Yes it is”

“No…it isn’t”

“YES!”

 

So, I picked up the basket and tossed all the contents on the floor. Very grown up of me.

“See. It’s not”

Ok. You get the picture. Tired, irritable mommy trying to reason with her two year old and acting rather childish herself.

( I used to judge other mommies, when I wasn’t one myself, for looking so bored or irritated with their clearly gorgeous, darling, precious little ones. Now I get it. Apologies to all the mommies I ever judged. I was…way off base.)

So, that’s why I feel pretty rotten right now. Because that’s not me. Or, that’s not the mommy I want to be. I know, we make mistakes. I know, I am supposed to forgive myself and move on. But right now, I just feel bummed. I wonder if I can do better. I am feeling really unqualified for the job right now. If it were any other job, I’d seriously consider quitting. This shit is HARD. But I suppose I’ll struggle on.

Goodnight.