I am nursing Eden on the couch in the kitchen when she bites me. Hard.
I yowl and right at that precise moment remember the custard for the strawberry ice cream is on the stove. I stand up to rescue the custard and instead send a glassful of ice water in a wide fan across the floor, ice cubes and all. The custard has become a glob of scrambled eggs floating in curdled milk.
I say my favorite little swear, my precious one saved for the worst sorts of crises. The one that’s so delicious my Dad would never forgive me if I shared it with you.
I say it because it is now six o’clock, I’ve been promising them we would make ice cream all freaking week, I finally got it done and now 8 eggs and two cups of milk are wasted and dinner is so late and I need these kids to go to bed tonight or I will lose my mind and tomorrow will start badly …
“I am so excited for ice cream!!” Mare says in that little I’m-such-a-freakishly-happy-well-adjusted-child-voice.
“Yeah, well … go to the family room, please,” I say.
“But I –!” Mare says.
“MARE!” She goes. I look at dinner and realize it won’t be ready for another 40 minutes. There are no more eggs, and no time to go get some and start another batch. Eden is wailing.
Ren comes out and I send her back to the family room, too, and then Mare comes out again and WHAT IS IT WITH THIS KID who never listens to a word I say any more and is suddenly the queen of the world? — and I send her back without telling her I’ve killed the ice cream and I AM SORRY YOU DIDN’T GET THE COOL MOTHER.
I plate supper. I’m doing it one armed, the wailing infant in the sling, refusing to be soothed by any of the normal crap that’s supposed to work. Mare and Ren are refusing to stay at the table where I have asked them twice to stay.
Holy shit I have three kids.
I get the platter of rice to the table, I set out plates and drop down a pile of napkins.
“Is it rice or couscous?” Mare asks as I run back to the kitchen for carrots and green beans, all the while toting a child who is howling as though someone she’d never done a thing to had bitten her on the nipple.
“Momma,” Mare scowls at my food, the meal I have labored to produce for her this fine afternoon. “Is this rice or couscous?”
I don’t even know how to answer, can’t wrap my mind around it, just want this night to end. I go back to the kitchen for drinks. Cute Husband is on the deck getting the pork chops off the grill.
I turn around and Ren is back in the kitchen.
“Momma, is it rice or couscous?”
And that is when Momma goes super-nova. Really. She folds in on herself and then allllll the little atoms that make up her entire person spatter out across the Universe, followed by a shockwave of sheer destruction.
“Sit in time out!” I tell her in a voice that make her go immediately.
“DIDYOUPUTHERUP TO THIS?” I spit at Mare. She nods her head “yes.”
“I told you both to stay at the table!”
“But I just wanted to know if it was rice or couscous!” she whimpers.
“GO!” I say. “Sit over there and do a time out.” She hasn’t done a time out in about a year. She slides miserably over to the spot on the floor I have pointed to. It’s near a curtain, so she wraps herself up in it and starts to shake.
I am a big fat asshole and I know it.
A few minute pass. I work on quieting Eden. Babies, I think, are too much a part of their mothers to be soothed if their mothers are stressed. She refuses to settle, which fires me up further, which doesn’t do much for her, either.
I ask the bigs to come sit with me. Mare hides in the curtain. Eden is still wailing and I am wondering what life would be like as a Congressional aid with nine years’ experience.
Cute Husband comes in with the pork, the girls sit at the table silent and sad, and Ren asks meekly, “Daddy, is it couscous or rice?”
“Couscous, Baby,” he says.
Just like that. He answers the freaking question. And they both nod and start eating.
It bubbles out of me, from down in my gut where all that stuff is. From the same place that just by whatever grace of God won’t let me stay too sad for too long, won’t let me take myself too seriously.
I start to laugh.
How absurdly simple. He just answered the question. Of course. Now why didn’t I think of that?
“Are you okay, Liz?” he asks.
My family — all blessed four of them — are staring at me. I have finally lost my mind and they are there to witness it and it isn’t fun.
Which strikes me as even freaking funnier so of course I am laughing some more.
Mare is in the tub before she will speak to me. We are two hours behind schedule, but I know the tub is important so I have drawn one and put nice soap in it and she lets me scrub her hair and then I say,
“You’re mad at me.” I let a long pause go by.
“The time out was unfair,” she says, and it is the start of my daughter addressing me person-to-person, defiant and hurt and holding me to account for the decisions I have made for her.
I think she is right. And I think she needs to be apologized to. But I also think she doesn’t really want to be that right, yet.
“I overreacted,” is the most I will give her. “But you pushed me to it. You pushed all day and you have been having a hard time doing what I ask the first time.”
“It’s the first mistake I’ve ever seen you make,” she says. Her eyes are full of tears, and I see fear lurking behind the anger.
“Oh, that’s totally not true,” I say. “I burned the ice cream a good twenty minutes before that.”
She laughs.
“And let’s not forget how many times we’ve been late to school. Or, good grief — your lunches. Let’s not even talk about how many times I’ve been late with that, right?” she smiles.
“We all make mistakes, Love,” I say. “It’s possible that I was stricter with you than I needed to be, but you absolutely drove me to it. You need to take responsibility for that and work harder to do as you are asked the first time, okay?”
She scowls. The anger is a relief to us both, but it breaks my heart. I silently rinse her hair, grieving that I have disappointed her. Wishing I could put my arms around her and tell her how sorry, tired, overwhelmed I am and ask her to forgive me and love me again.
I marvel at the bad decision I made to be so angry at her, and how the very same mind and heart responsible for that figured out how important it was to let her be angry back.
Oh, Liz. How I love you, Liz.
I love that at the same time you know you’re wrong, you also realize how much you need to still be “a little right” for Mary’s sake. And, I love that when I read you, I realize that I’m sane too (or perhaps the same brand of crazy), and that it’s all going to be okay.
((hugs)) Hope your evening has gotten better, and has involved something lazy, luxurious, and possibly tasty.
Oh, Liz. I’m with Allison. I don’t know you, but wow. I love how you put to words the emotion and thought process of probably every stressed woman at one point or another.
Hang in there and know that you are doing just fine.
I have so been there and done that many times over. You described my feelings perfectly.
And what is it with six year old girls going on seven? I used to be able to say things once, maybe twice. Now I need to get that sharp Mommy edge to my voice to get her to do most anything.
Liz,
Thank you for being brave enough to give voice to all the anger and frustration that comes with being a good mother. No one ever allows us to talk about that part – we are supposed to pretend it doesn’t happen. I once had to give myself a timeout in the bathroom because I knew that if I spanked my 2 year old it would feel so good I might not stop. THANK YOU
“And that is when Momma goes super-nova. Really. She folds in on herself and then allllll the little atoms that make up her entire person spatter out across the Universe, followed by a shockwave of sheer destruction.”
Beautifully described — I sometimes think of it as the shoreline before a giant tidal wave .. the sea rolls back, its eerily quiet … then BAM. And I have no more control over it than I would the sea.
And I love how you say Mare doesn’t want to be quite that right, yet. Its such a delicate balance.
And Karin in CT – I don’t know what is up with 6-going-on-7. If it isn’t the convenient hearing, its the DRAMA. Oh, the drama. Yikes.
Well played all the way around. I can only ask how you even attempted to make a meal with all that going on! And with multiple food groups. Are you showing off?
Perhaps I need to attend a remedial parenting class, but could I clarify with how Mare doesn’t want to that right? Do ya mean it couldn’t be all about your apologizing and missing in there her owning up her behaviour that day?
I only ask because I apologize A LOT. And I am wondering if I am doing it wrong.
I’ve been there. I’ll be there again. I screw up all the time though. How lucky you are to have not broken the spell until now.
I go through this with just one. But like you, I try to apologize for my reaction to the behavior without letting her off the hook for the behavior. I hope it works. Sometimes I know I’m just a big fat asshole too!
I love this post. My favorite posts EVER from this blog are the raw, honest ones where you show that you are human, a REAL mom, and not just some stranger behind another computer, in another state. These are the posts I really relate to! In fact, I have the post about pajama day from last summer printed out and occasionally read the last part (“What if I had chosen never to be a mother?”) when I am having a rough Mommy day. It helps to not only put me in my place, but remind me that I have one in this world. Thanks!!
I’m with Heather. After reading this, the thing I kept going back to was the meal you were cooking.
Really?!?
I have ONE kid, 7 months old. I can barely manage to make a freakin’ sandwich.
You guys are so funny about the dinner thing, thanks.
Heather from Vancouver — I think it’s important to apologize to your kids when you make mistakes, but in this case, I decided it would be worse for her if I did that.
Foremost, I think it was really important that I take responsibility for having over-reacted — for having punished a child in anger, which I have never done before. No matter how I approached Mare about it, it was really important that I take stock of how I got there and be honest about what I had done. All kids need boundaries and negative consequences, and all parents get mad at kids who aren’t listening. You cross a line when you let your anger dictate the discipline, which is what I did in this case. And Mare, on some level, knew it.
I felt that if I apologized to her for having done that it would confirm her suspicion. It would undermine me as a disciplinarian and it would be scary for her.
Eventually, I will be totally undermined as a disciplinarian and she will learn how very wrong I can be. — That’s what the teen years are for. But right now she needs to believe I am almost infallible. So I let her go to bed hostile and angry rather than ask her to forgive me.
This is why I give single parents all the credit in the world. I need the Spouse to come into the situation and just know the right thing to say to diffuse the bomb. Sometimes I do it for him. But it definately takes both of us.
“Super-nova.” I love this image. I have actually hopped up and down while shrieking because I was so mad. Great parenting, that.
God, you are a good mother.
Poke,poke,poke,poke,poke,poke,poke,poke,poke,poke.
I think the best part is you thinking it’s rice, and Cute Husband, saying couscous. Intentional deception to calm the storms?
Great writing and a great post. Thanks.
Thanks for sharing even the maelstrom of your life….I respect you the more I read you. We can’t bring ourselves to get to one child, and yet you parent three with such aplomb….
Amazing post. SO honest, and we’ve all had them. Thanks for sharing how you were ‘a big fat asshole’ so I feel better when I am one, too.
Thanks for being honest. We’ve all had those days and it’s nice to know we’re not alone.
On a side note- what do I do with cous cous? I’ve picked it up a hundred times at the grocery store, but I’m clueless with it? Recipes anyone?
I’ve been an asshole more times than I can count. Most of them still make me cringe and cry. I give you props for not losing your shit on CH for answering Mare so simply and sweetly. It’s the cherry on my worst nights when my husband can walk into the madness, fresh from his drive home (alone in a car, listening to NPR, no one talking to him that he doesn’t want to speak to) to be everyones Hero for ten minutes then announce he’s going to take a quick nap.
I have three too. I have talked to a lot of women about this. I have heard very often that the third is the hardest. I have heard it from a Mother of 6. I have heard it from a Mother of 9. I have heard it a lot. Why is that? I wonder. I stopped at 3, it was more than enough for me. It was more than DH could imagine sending through college. It was more than I could imagine going thru the horror of morning sickness for. Why is it then that the third is the hardest and the fourth will be somehow easier? I don’t plan to find out. I am 38 years old, and I am tired. And my youngest goes to Kindegarten this fall. I am done. For six sweet hours, I am done. I will shop alone, I will cook alone, I will scrap alone. I will be alone. I have been a Mother for nearly 13 years, but this fall, I will finally be alone. People say, “what will you do?”. Are you freaking kidding me? I will finally be me.
Hi Liz,
You are allowed to get mad at your children – don’t think that makes you a bad mother or losing your mind! They push your buttons all day, don’t listen, then babies cry, dinner is late and then–it all becomes too much and you snap. It is OK to let this happen once in a while. You certianly didn’t raise your hand to your chid. You are a tired mother of an infant and 2 older children – you can correct them and not have Child Protective Services coming to check!!
We all have these moments and your daughters will learn that it is all part of life – the part of an expanding family. Everyone having to work together. It is good that Mary was able to understand and hopefully, she will learn from the experience too.
Oh my goodness, you have your hands full! We’ve all been there.
I have three children and one of their favourite meals when they were little was “bird’s nests”. Plain spaghetti with a boiled egg in the middle and sprinkled with peas and corn – all in the same pot. Terribly uninspiring but fast and easy.
Boy did I connect with your words!! Thank you for your openness, honesty, humor, candor.
I’m sitting here laughing so hard my kids probably think I’m starting to lose it! You are hysterical and your story just made me feel better about my bad morning….thanks!