Why? Oh, Why?

What I'm trying to say here is that I am a terrible mother. I am also a great mother: warm, creative, funny, doting. But today the great-mother part feels like a drop of pink dye in a cup of water, and the bad mother part is a big squirt of black, and once it's all black, the pink just seems kind of irrelevant. Every New Year's Eve, I resolve to be more patient. And then I blow it on the first day of the new year. Usually by noon. And it's so hard to describe, the effects of this impatience. It's subtle: I feel my face pull into criticism, my eyebrows sucked together into ruts of irritation; I hear my voice, the way I can speak mild words but in the harsh dialect of What's wrong with you?; I see, flitting across the children's eyes, the way I can make them feel ill at ease, here in their very own home, here in their very own skin. This is one of the worst feelings I know. ....I speak sharply to him; I speak mockingly of his "show and tell"; I speak as if he's a stranger we have caught in an act of vandalism. If you spoke to me this way, I would flee the room in tears and our friendship would never be mended. If my children spoke to each other this way, I would be outraged. If you spoke to my children this way, I would kill you.

The above is a clip from Catherine Newman's column. I had the fortune of reading this after a particularly crabby morning in which on the way to school, Maryn says to me: "Mom, are you having a good day or a bad day". I told her that as strange as it may seem, seeing as I just got out of bed that Mommy was having a grumpy morning. I asked her what she thought I should do about this. As it turns out, her remedy for the grumps is to scratch my head...one, two, three....and then all my fingers. This at least made me laugh and I apologized for my grumps just in time for Dylan to scream bloody murder about apparently nothing and then the feeling, the awful feeling I had been feeling all morning, came rushing back to me. As much as I hate these mornings, I find comfort when I hear similar experiences from other moms. It makes me a little more confident that I am not scarring my children for life.

It is especially daunting knowing that my children are entering the time in their lives where they will remember the things I say and do. If like Rex, they will remember far more than I expect. I took solace in the fact that when they were little, my harsh words or actions would be forgotten almost as quickly as it happened. Now I am waiting for the moment Maryn or Dylan says: "Mommy, remember that morning that you were oh so mean and grumpy?"

As always, I will strive to do better!

Irreplaceable Moments

There are moments in my life that have left irreplaceable marks on my soul. A lot of the times a memory will take over my mind because of a familiar smell or sight, but there are certain memories that just wash over me. The presence of them are so strong that I can instantly and only for a brief moment feel being in that time and place. Some of these special memories for me are the basics like first days of school, driving for the first time, going to the beach with my grandparents, getting married, and having my children.

When I lived in Philadelphia, my roommates and I would always go out to lunch after receiving our paychecks. It became a tradition and one I remember fondly. Being in that group, I always had a sincere feeling of protection and security. They had become my family at that moment of my life. When that memory rushes through me I can feel myself sitting on the deck of TGI Friday's, the warm sun washing over me. But I know that what makes it so extreme was the feeling of being carefree, not a worry in the world. As we grow into adults and especially parents, cares and worries become part of our make-up. I wish these kinds of memories for everyone, for my children, because once we become these beings that worry about what seems like everything, I don't imagine there is a way to go back to a life of being carefree or at least I haven't mastered it yet.

All of the "old people" I know ;) say that I am in the cupcake part of parenting. That I will find out sooner or later that it never gets easier. And as absurd as this sounds, I have to completely disagree with these people who have far more experience than I do. I do so with the complete knowlege that with each passing year my children will continue to transform into these perfect beings!! I mean seriously, how hard could it be to have children that actually get into their seats when you open the car door instead of bolting to the danger zone to "drive", pull down all the CD's, and spill mommy's drink while she is obviously preoccupied putting big sister into her 300-point harness around a winter jacket that seems to grow larger everyday. So much so that by the time spring finally and thankfully comes upon us it will be the size of Texas. Or really, how hard could it be to have children who's food actually ends up in their mouths and not in there hair or somehow down their shirts. Do I even need to talk about the nights of catching vomit in a bucket?

But, even if it is true, that it gets harder, I am going to continue to live my life of ignorant bliss. And now that we are officially incapable of having any more children, I am going to enjoy every second of this hectic crazy life all the while hoping and praying that each moment is making it's own irreplaceable mark on my soul.