Friday, October 2, 2009

It's Not Always Good in the (mother) Hood: thoughts from a tired mama

This afternoon I was told "no, I no love YOU!" through screaming and tears by this sweet cherub. She has been using the potty on at least a semi-successful basis for several weeks now and has just now decided she does NOT want to sit, does not care if she has accidents and told me today she wanted diapers. Then she did not want to take a nap. Even knowing she was tired and probably a little out of sorts after a flu vaccine yesterday and that she's two didn't completely soften the blow of those words.


Earlier this week, this one stripped down naked in protest to my inability to produce a ham sandwich on command. The naked part was kinda funny but the screaming, out-of-control tantrum involving a substance that we did not even have in the house was not.


In fact, sometimes the tantrums and the whining and the complaining are pretty draining. I hold on to two things:

1. Everyone except us finds them to be well behaved, funny, sweet and smart.
2. My brother-in-law (whose teenage (and up) kids set the bar pretty high if you ask me) tells me that if they don't feel like you are depriving them of something at LEAST once a day, you're not doing your job.

Whew. I must be a FABULOUS mother.

Footnote: Upon re-reading #1, I noticed that it sounds rather like I don't think my children are very nice kids. I do. I think they are the bees-knees! Just trying to point out that the naughty, mouthy disrespect, testing, testing, testing, seems to be reserved for us, ergo we must be teaching them SOMETHING :-)

7 comments:

Leciawp said...

You ARE a fabulous mother!

And you've won a print - great job on the Star Wars trivia! Please send me your address and which print you'd like. xo

leciaandalexi@yahoo.com

feather said...

i love this post. i am sorry your baby doesn't love you. look on the bright side. she'll love you again in 5 minutes and won't remember ever NOT loving you! thank you for reminding me that i might just be a fabulous mother, too.

Nicola said...

now seriously, why can't you and i have coffee together when we want to? i mean, then we could pile all the tantruming kids into one house (or park to spare us the clean up) and let them have at it. i don't even think i can describe my daughter the last few days. she is totally fine at school, but she gets home, tired, and that's it. and it never seems to end. last night (after a day when the kids woke just before and just after 5am respectively), she woke up and had a tantrum at 10:30pm! ack!

so cool you won lecia's print! that's the second blog win!

and i ditto lecia and feather's responses. you are a fantastic mom and miss E probably already adores you again.

i think the exhausting part is that everyone else seems to get the good behavior, then they come home and at the end of the day (like last night for me) i wanted them asleep with every inch of me. i was fighting being cranky back at them, and i was plain old tired from being abused all day.

but there are joyous moments too. we really are so lucky. (i can say this now. i just had a couple hours break.)

nicola
http://whichname.blogspot.com

Sherrie said...

I can hear a certain brother in law saying that very thing!

The naked protest over a ham sandwich must be documented in his baby book...I am sorry but that had me rolling and I know that it would not have when it was mine, but I have a really good friend who points out the hilarity of situations when I am too emotional to see it, thought you should too!
We moms have all been where you are at some point. I am glad that you have an outlet and support group with which to share it!

Anna said...

Oh, darling. You are in good company.

My daughter recently told me she was "crossing me off her list."

I'm pretty sure that's supposed to be an insult.

(PS-The naked, ham-sandwich incident? Hysterical.)

beemahoney said...

imagine if we all took our clothes off when we didn't get what we wanted.

Songbird Mama said...

ah.....don't you love days like this!?
it makes you appreciate them when they are sleeping! :))