bad mommy

I'm in the middle of a Bad Day.

I think it started when Daughter burst out of bed with even more than her usual verve...oh wait, no, it actually started when AJ found Daughter's little guitar leaning up against the couch where she left it last night, and then did a face plant when he tried to use it for a walking support. I had my back turned (OF COURSE) so I did not see the actual fall, just the bleeding chin and goose-egged forehead that followed. THEN Daughter came flying to see what the hubbub was about. And was snotty with me when I asked her to head back upstairs to change out of her pull-up. ("Mom, I just came down here. Do you really think I want to go back upstairs?")

Then, while we were having breakfast, we noticed we did not hear the shower, and discovered that Hubs was still snoring right through his alarm. Daughter went up to goose him, and once he got himself ready for work it somehow became my fault that he was running late. ("Why did you guys let me oversleep?") Excuse me, grown man, but your alarm has been going off for 2 hours...I already have 2 children to care for in the morning, I am not taking on wake-up duty for the other adult in the household.

Then we somehow ended up running late ourselves, for a library Thanksgiving event at 10:30. On the way out the door Daughter managed to step on AJ's fingers. I spent what felt like an inordinate amount of time bundling everyone into their warm outerwear, only to have them rip most of it off the second the car started. Got to the library just at 10:30 and had to do that inelegant dance of rebundling the children and stuffing the small one into the stroller while making sure the big one didn't get hit by a car.

During the event the adorable wee girl sitting next to Daughter kept coming out with this horrible, deep, wet chest cough. Great.

And is there a full moon? Because I've never experienced such poorly behaved children in my life. Kids were literally doing somersaults and skipping around the room while their parents mooned at the ceiling or wrangled their smaller kids. In what was perhaps my best moment of the day, I noted that both my children were behaving beautifully. However, I did feel slight annoyance that the woman leading the event chose to read a Dora book and a Clifford book, which were both only loosely about Thanksgiving. Dora the explorer? I would think we would hear a story about Pilgrims and Indians. I realize it's not PC, but it is the whole basis of the holiday, no?

Got in line to check out our books afterwards, then moved off to the side to get bundled up again. A dad from the storytime event said, "you in line?" And I said, "oh, I'm sorry, no!" and moved over a bit more. And then he said, "PHHHT! I've been standing here behind you!" Whoops, I guess it's my fault that you're an idiot, dude.

And then we came home, and while Daughter ate lunch AJ really did not, and instead cried and cried. And I just got angry. I got more and more irritated and angry trying to get him to eat, and he was smearing baby food all over his face and in his hair, and I was just so mad about it. Finally I gave up, washed him off, and put him in his seat for the stupid tube feeding. Then I emptied the dishwasher with a liberal amount of cupboard door slamming and silverware clattering, and started crying halfway through because the day was just sucking so much and it was only 12:30.

In the next 30 minutes I cleaned the entire kitchen, and vacuumed everywhere because, oh joy, we had PT today for AJ. Which he does not even need anymore but I don't know how to get out of it. And she comes at 1:30, which is totally his naptime now that he doesn't sleep in the morning anymore. And today? Today she was almost 15 minutes LATE.

Daughter has been crabbing and whining at me (no surprise, she is totally feeding off my mood) so I finally made her lie down on the couch - she is now sound asleep but I hear the baby fussing upstairs.

The washing machine has decided the spin cycle is for suckers, and I just found a load of diapers sitting in about 4 inches of water (clean rinse water, thankfully), even though the dial says the cycle is complete.

I'm not even looking forward to the holidays because it will just be a month of trying to keep the baby from hurting himself in/on/around/hanging from the Christmas tree. And then more stuff will come into our house, and where am I going to put more stuff?? We have too much stuff as it is. I want to get rid of a bunch of it, but I am accused of being a cruel scrooge when I suggest that perhaps we could donate some old toys and stuffed animals. (Also, as an aside, my MIL dropped off the kids' Christmas outfits last week. If you've been reading here long enough, you know what I really mean when I say I appreciate the thought [even though she bought Daughter a 3T and AJ a 6-9 month size].)

You know, this is totally a 24 hour job, and while men's jobs have generally gotten easier and less physical over the years, women's jobs have not. Sure, we have washing machines and dishwashers, but otherwise? I mean, I don't yet have a self-scrubbing bathroom, do you? I don't have babies that can dress or bathe themselves, or change their own stinky diapers. And while generations ago women were expected to stay home and do their work (with the help of their children as soon as they were big enough, I might add), now we also have to run errands and take our kids to events, and if we demand that they do some chores we're being unreasonable and mean. And I can't just let it go, people, because I have therapists coming into my home several days each week. I'm not going to allow my home to descend into a sloppy mess. I just can't. The rug has to be vacuumed if someone is going to be crawling around on it with my baby. The booster seat and surrounding floor cannot be caked with old food if someone is going to be working there with my baby.

I just don't feel happy and joyful. I feel like a maid. Daughter is becoming mouthy and obstinate, and while it pains me, it doesn't surprise me. Again, she feeds off her examples. I want to be a good mom, I really do. Not just in the general providing food, clean clothes, and shelter kind of way, but the creative, stimulating, fun kind of way. I'm just not sure how to do that when the work seems never to get done. We are so cluttered, and I never want to even get the paints out or play with playdough because oh my gosh, I don't need more mess. Which is a terrible attitude!!! I don't want to have that attitude!

Ugh! This is just such a rotten feeling day.

Ok, ok, dinner is at least in the oven (roast chicken and cheesy potatoes, don't you want to come over? You know you do!) and both children are still asleep. Which bodes poorly for bedtime but whatever. I'm going to sit down and knit a few rows and try to fix my head.

Thanks for 'listening.' I feel a bit better blowing this all out.