A Good Mother

Quite often, the comments here, which I love and adore, which make my day and make me laugh and make me think and introduce me to new lives and stories all over the world, frequently these comments - you - tell me that I'm a good mother. That I care. That I am perceptive with my kids. That I have good ideas.

And quite often, I try and I am and I do.

But, it is easy, in all honesty, to be perceptive and loving on paper. On blog, I guess I should say.

Sometimes, I am not a good mother. I don't mean in my head. In real life, in living color, I am mean, impatient, a horrendous role model of sarcasm and anger in response to frustration.

These three going on four kids under four didn't just happen to me. I am not a victim of circumstances. Matt and I have a lot of education, we have resources, we understood, each time, the change we were accepting to our lifestyle, our finances, our career options. We made conscious choices.

I like being at home with my kids. I would change nothing. Nothing about any of that changes the fact that three and a half is a horrendous age - by far my least favorite to date. Saige and Garrett are whining, temperamental, bossy creatures. They don't listen. They scream when thwarted. They never met a toy or situation they can't exploit inappropriately. And suddenly, they can be mean, intentionally, emotionally cruel. They refuse hugs. They throw things I've asked be set down.

In case you are thinking: Wow! I had it wrong. Worse mother ever, get some control. They are also delightful, adventurous sprites. They understand consequences. They are sweet. They are chatty and fun. They can be helpful. They are just...three? And I am human. I am patient and consistent, except when I'm not.

Matt's new schedule keeps him at work until 6:30 four nights a week. (It's fine, he's then off for three days!) Which means, in my world, that dinner is no longer the finish line on his work days. He won't be home until almost seven, after clean-up and a little playtime and getting ready for bed. He won't be home until they are all washed and PJed and cute and snuggly, reading stories on our big bed.

They really are cute and scrubbed and ready for bed by 6:45 - thank a higher power - because those last forty-five minutes can be ugly, on all sides.

Last night, Quinn took huge offense to having his diaper changed for bed. He screamed and thrashed and kicked at me with his strong, stubby little legs. A good mother might have walked away, put him in his crib and taken a break. I was tired and ready to be done with this day and I wrestled his scaly demon baby strength.

Meanwhile, Garrett played, irritatingly, with the closet door behind me, contributing to the noise and chaos. Enter Saige, whining in her ear-piercing, small-animal-being-tortured-whine that I swear only little girls attain. (Not saying Garrett doesn't whine, he does, but that little girl whine, that huffy, indignant intentionally ear-splittingly-loud little girl whine. It shuts down my brain, collapses my synapses to one desperate pathway - OH MY GOD someone put that creature, and me, out of our misery. That I-think-I-might-understand-why-people-kick-puppies little girl whine).

Enter Saige, mid-whine about her pajama pants being stuck or inside out or something that can wait a god damn minute thank you very much.

"MAAAAAAMMMMMMAAAAA myyyyyyy paaaaaaaaaants."

I lost hold of a thrashing half-diapered leg as my eardrum exploded on her side.

"Just a minute." I swear that was said quietly and reasonably.
"MY PANTS!! MY PAAAAAAAAAANTS ARE STUCK!!"
"Okay, I'm dealing with Quinn, just a minute." (Still, I swear.)
"I fixed them!" (Wait, a pleasant voice - she has a pleasant voice?)

"Great." I had, admittedly, not turned from my current wrestling match. Baby still howled.

That was not nearly enough accolades for little miss center of the known universe. "Maaaaamma! I FIIIXXXEDD THEM!!" Error, error, pleasant voice gone.

"I need a minute."

She threw her pants to the floor with an indignant screech and an attitude that made my blood boil and my brain go blank. The screech-crying escalated.

I could lie here, because I'm okay at telling stories. But, I won't. I lost my shit. I turned on her with a snarl that would make your blood run cold if you observed me at Target. (In fact, if you saw me react like that at Target - which you won't because I'm not completely stupid - you would blog about the horrible mother you saw at Target and her poor, poor children.) Don't sugar coat it in your mind, don't think I'm exaggerating because you think you like (liked?) me.

I turned on her with all the power and sarcasm and nastiness of my thirty-odd years of experience. "You Have Got To Be Kidding Me? Are you seriously going to stand there and scream at me because I can not, right this second, look at your magically fixed pants? I am DOING something. The baby is crying. I Said I Would Help You In A Minute."

In this time, I took her arm, not kindly, I dragged her and her pants and her scream and her snotty nose and her mind-crippling attitude to her room. I sent her running in.

"Put your pajamas on and if you scream in here instead, you will go to bed without books or songs immediately in whatever phase of pajama wearing you choose to accomplish. AM I CLEAR?"

She sniveled, "yes momma." Of course she did. She is three. I have thirty-three years and an advanced education's vocabulary on her whiny ass, not to mention I am bigger and louder. And I shouldn't use it. But, I did.

Know what else I did? I left Quinn on the changing table for the time it took me - brief but real - to inappropriately take my frustration out on my daughter. He could have fallen. Broken a bone or cut his lip open, but I lost sight of the correct course in my anger.

Fifteen minutes later, when Matt walked into our bedroom, we were piled in the middle of the bed. Faces clean of tears, bright in deliciously cute PJs, clustered around the second of our three books. I had changed the baby, redirected Garrett, gone to Saige and praised her for putting on her pajamas, for fixing her pants by herself. I asked her if it was okay to scream when mommy needs a moment before she answers. She knows the answer is no. I told her it's not okay for mommy to yell when she's mad either. We hugged. We brushed teeth in various stages of gum protrusion.

I could have started this story here - told it so differently. Here, where it started for Matt, warm and joyful, all bleached and smelling of clean laundry (mostly, with the possible exception of our sheets). That wouldn't be the whole story, would it?

It would be a sweet story. True in it's own right and so incomplete. So there you go, I give you the ugly underbelly, the moment before the moment. Because you know what, I am still a good mother. I am just not a perfect one.