Unconditional, unquestioning love

Today was another rough day with the kids. Even though they're still very young, they've already started to gang up on me, and their screaming and fighting and unwillingness to listen really got to me this afternoon. I felt pushed to my edge and yelled, which I don't like to do and which I always feel guilty about afterward. The day seemed extra long because my husband worked late tonight, and I couldn't wait for him to get home so that I could sneak out for an hour before the kids' bedtime. I had to buy Easter basket treats, so I needed to go out for that, but maybe more importantly, I needed that time to myself. I needed the peace. When my husband came home, I practically ran out the door.

When I returned home, my son, the son that I had yelled at all day long, ran to the door and hugged me around the knees, and shouted, "Mama! Mama's home!" I wanted to cry. After everything bad that had happened today, he was still excited to see me. Despite it all, he was glad I was home.

I was too.

Every once in a while, you gotta have one...

A dreadful, appalling, hideous, horrible day, that is.

The kids ran me ragged today, and although I'd like to post something worthwhile and interesting, my brain is just too fried tonight. I won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that today was a long, trying, tiring day, during which I was forced to confiscate library books and withhold snacks, among other things.

Tomorrow will be better, right?

Day gone wrong

My husband has been working on a project at his office all day, and although the kids and I had a good day together, we had a horrible evening. All the ambitions I had to write are gone, and I'm sitting here at the computer with a glass of wine (actually, my second) and a plate that once held graham crackers and peanut butter. (We're out of chocolate.) I had some good things happen writing-wise earlier in the day, and I wanted to write about them here tonight, but the bad Mom evening I just had has taken my excitement away. Tomorrow will be better, right? Meanwhile, here's a bit of writing I posted at another site this morning. Although fictional, it describes how I feel about my current stage in the writing process:

The beginning was always the hardest. Oscar would spend days on it, searching for the best words to recreate the images that played in his imagination. Translating stories to paper was difficult; describing exactly what he saw in his mind did not happen easily, and characters who moved freely in his imagination would sometimes become stilted and two-dimensional on the page. For him, the beginning of the story was the story, and if he could get it just right--give those characters depth and breath and life--then he knew the rest of the story would follow.

Dana's Very Bad Day

It started off nicely enough.

I'd had my coffee; the kids weren't fighting. Everything was...well, cool.

Then the library's Max and Ruby DVD went missing, and all hell broke loose. The three of us searched high; we searched low. We searched what we'd already searched, then searched it all again.

The DVD was gone, AWOL, missing in action, and we feared we would never see it again. The kids were sad. I was sad too; I didn't want to pay a fine.

As the search went on, the kids grew bored and restless. I grew angry. I ranted and raved. "Why can't you remember to put things back where they belong?" I shouted.

After hours of searching, we were overcome by exhaustion. The littlest one took a nap. The bigger one played. I, the old and cranky one, made dinner and stewed.

Our soup tasted of rage. Daddy returned from work and heard the story. He vowed to continue the search. I vowed to continue to rant. The kids ate...remarkably.

After dinner (no dessert), I did the dishes, then went through the trash, still searching, still fuming. Nothing. I sat at the table, racked my brain, was at a loss.

Then...joy! The bigger one raced into the room, DVD in hand--and peace reigned once again.

**Ihis is the greatly sanitized version; our day was much, much worse. We're hoping for a better one tomorrow.

Who needs the time-out today? Oh, yeah. I do.

Today has been one of those I-suck-as-a-mother days. These days seem to be happening all too frequently lately, most of them falling on Mondays, which shouldn't be too surprising, I guess, since Mondays usually signify my first day back as a full-time mom. (I take part-time mom status over the weekends when the husband is home all day.)

Anyway, I let the noise and the whining and the fighting and the "I wants" and the "She hit mes" get to me today, until I finally lost my temper and yelled, thereby rendering all of my "Don't yells" and "Be polites" null and void. Oh, well. Good thing the kids don't know the word "hypocrite" yet, huh? Seriously, I do get discouraged on days like today. I'm a perfectionist, and I really want to be a good mom, so when I have days like this, I really beat myself up. I guess, though, that I just need to chalk it up to a bad day and promise myself when I wake up tomorrow that I'll try harder and do better.

But a little chocolate and a time-out might make me feel better in the meantime. :)