Mommy Meltdown

So it was one of THOSE days. When everything has already gone wrong and you've only been awake for five minutes. It was a rush to get the big kids to school after a long weekend. I felt guilt over waking them up after not enough sleep and then pushing them out the door too fast.

And then, the babies wake up. And they are grumpy. And they scream for about an hour. And my tried and true tricks are not working...facetime with gma, mickey mouse clubhouse, telling them we get to "go!"). So, I guess I'm skipping the gym today. Especially since my two day old workout clothes now have pee on them.

But...we have to make it the dentist. Our one year old cracked her teeth so we need to go see how that needs to be taken care of. But...we don't have time to get a babysitter for Brooke. So now there's two one year olds at the dentist with just me. And they are climbing, and grabbing the sparkly confetti off the display faster than I can grab the goldfish out of the diaper bag. And I just want to crawl into a hole. But the receptionist says, "They are so cute!! Don't you just look at them and think they are cute all day long?!" And then I have guilt for not thinking that just about everything they do is amazing!

So we get through the appointment (barely), by the skin of my teeth. I won't even talk about how I had to change a diaper with the other one pulling about six toilet seat covers out and attempting to flush them down the toilet. But the toilet didn't like that, so I had to fish them out and throw them away while dripping toilet water onto my babies' heads? Yeah, kind of like that. After watching my baby be tortured by the dentist, we loaded up two balloons and two kids in the stroller and proceed to walk out and put everyone and everything in the car. Whew. I got lunch, and thought I had survived.

But then, Brooke had a major tantrum when I didn't let her drink my Diet Coke. Imagine that. Her cup of freshly poured milk was not good enough, or the fries I was generously offering. And her diaper was next to be changed, so I had to pin her down kicking and screaming to do that. I threw them in bed, but all of a sudden my In and Out treat didn't taste as good with my side of toddler screaming in her crib.

And then...it was time to pick up the big kids. I actually was excited this time. I get to have a 15 minute walk in the sunshine and then see adults for five minutes! :)  All was well, until...my son starts tugging on my shirt. He is thirsty. I hold him off...we'll wait till we get home! And then, the crocodile tears. "I didn't eat lunch!" he exclaims. Oh boy. My sweet, obedient son left his lunch in the classroom and didn't know what to do to get it back. He didn't see a teacher and didn't want to break any lunch time rules. Bless his heart.

So I picked up my mommy heart and spent a good hour feeding, reading, and doing HW with those kids. Thank goodness those babies slept through this!

And then...was Costco. I normally would have gone in the morning, but we had the dentist appointment. So that means a trip with four kids. Which wouldn't be bad except for that a trip to the store with any amount of kids is always bad!  Thank goodness for free samples..except we had lemonade spilled on aisle 12 and sunflower seeds dumped on aisles 2-4.  And I swear only the grumpy grandparents were shopping today. Only glares in the produce section this time. But we made it to the checkout. The kids were playfully pushing and shoving and I felt like I had run a marathon. And, the nice checkout lady remarks, "Your children are so well behaved." Again, instant guilt. Because, yes, they are. Especially at the store. Especially for how young they are. But all I could see were the glares and the interruptions. So I repented again. And we happily carried in all the food and stuffed it into the fridge. The babies used the new cereal boxes as a stool while I quickly put the dinner on the table. And I was feeling so proud for buying a healthy dinner instead of food court pizza at Costco. But then, it was on the floor. In a matter of seconds. And there was screaming for junk food instead of the nice carrot sticks they could have had. And the big kids were so hyper and over tired and it was LOUD! And I was alone. I AM SO GRATEFUL that Ryan has a wonderful job. He works hard for our family, but he is gone  A LOT. And it is hard to feel alone.

So in the middle of cars crashing into ranch mountains and cherry tomatoes being used for baseball practice, I just yelled and cried. That it was too hard. And I was done. And that I couldn't clean up one more time. And then, I got a hug from my girl. And my sweet boy, who had gone hungry that day and who doesn't get nearly enough attention, just said, "YOU can do hard things, mom!"

And it was quiet. And I laughed and then cried. I picked, "you can do hard things" as our theme for the school year because I thought it might be hard for my young guys to be at school all day learning. But my son was teaching me a lesson. I might have had a little bit of a temper tantrum, but he was right.
I can do hard things! And my life is hard. But I can't let it stop me from looking at my toddlers and thinking that they are adorable. And I can't let it stop me from seeing my big kids as the well behaved children they are. (even though it takes Rachel an hour to write her name!).

So I picked myself up, cleaned up the dinner, let my husband come home and put the kids to bed his way even though it takes longer. And I started the laundry and packed the lunches (an extra big one), and snuggled on the couch for Wednesday movie night. And knew that I would not get enough sleep one more time, but that it would be okay because my son thinks I can do hard things.