Keeping it Real

When looking at the last couple of posts my life seems a bit, um perfect. Well in between all those "perfect" days are days like today. It went alright until I decided to run into Walmart to get some milk and baby food. Just a quick smash and grab (never think you can "run" into walmart. Halfway through walmart I pull out a bottle for Dash and see that half the water is gone, putting 4 oz of water in the bottom of my bag. I hate Avent bottles, they leak far too much.

Dash doesn't eat much and starts fussing right when we get home. I feel he is warm, but cannot find my thermometer to check. I give him some tylenol and I put him down for a nap. I then get to work putting away the groceries and started roasting the chicken for dinner. Tried to get more food into Amaya before sending her to nap time too. I wash a couple loads of laundry and shower. This part is all fairly calm.

I pick up Ella from school and bring her home. I get on the computer to check something for a friend who is out running errands and needs some info. Ella looks at me and says "why don't you get up and do something?" "Excuse me?" I said, flabbergasted that she would say something like that to me? She was trying to put together a tent using my dining chairs and quilts, which I wasn't thrilled about to begin with. I then explain to her that I can sit down if I want to. I have already done a lot around the house to keep it functioning and I took her to school, and did laundry and started dinner and what not. She is like a deer in headlights wondering why her comment outraged me so much. She says she meant why don't I excercise (like that's any better). I explain to her I already walked 5 miles today, and she doesn't get to say such sassy things to me. She starts crying. I ask why she is crying, and she says because I was talking mean to her. Sigh! I tell her to apologize to me and to not talk to her mother that way. Then I let my far to big first-born bawl into my shoulder.

Later, Dash wakes up. The house looks like a bomb went off (remember: Ella made a tent in the front room, and I am doing laundry, and dinner). Dash won't stop fussing. I put him down to change his poopy diaper and Amaya is by my side to help. She picks up the diaper rash cream and hits Dash in the head with it. My first reaction, which I follow, is to rip it from her hands and pop her in the head with it. So now I have both children on my lap crying as hard as if they got hit in the head.... oh yeah they did. Ella trying to be helpful comes over right behind and proceeds to ask over and over "where did she hit him?" All this before dinner time. You don't want me to keep going and talk about Amaya falling off her chair during dinner and hitting her head, arm and leg on the way down.

I can't get over some of the events of today. Am I that bad of a mother that my 6-year-old thinks I am lazy? And is that she thinks that or she just doesn't pay attention to what I do and innocently wants me to be healthy and exercise? Why am I getting so easily annoyed by her. Just the constant need for my attention, makes me want to groan. Then I see her treat Amaya badly and I see things that I have done or said. All the badness she learned from me. Then I think about it and feel guilty because I tell myself she's SIX, she still needs affection and she doesn't get the one-on-one attention I am able to give Dash and Amaya during the day because she's at school.

Am I that bad of a mother, that I can't stop and think. When a 2-year-old hits a baby in the head with a tube, why do I follow through with hitting her in the head back instead of putting her in time-out which would have been a more effective punishment?

Why can't I dig down and find my fun mom side and my playful side. Why can't I find that pool of everlasting patience?