This morning sucked. I sucked. My kid woke up and made a concerted effort to get his own breakfast. Never mind the fact that his breakfast was a HUGE bowl of whipped cream on top of one strawberry, I still just should have shut up. He was trying. My mouth started running. "No way are you just eating whipped cream for breakfast! That's disgusting! Blah blah blah..." That got the ball rolling and it snowballed from there. There was a long list of stupid stuff that I jumped all over him for. Working on math facts for a math fluency test he had today was the icing on the cake. He fought practicing the dumb math facts tooth and nail. I am talking adding and subtracting...stuff he can do. I was pissed that he wasn't trying. He was having a meltdown because I was making him do it. He was crying. I got more mad. He was throwing pencils. I picked him up kicking and screaming and carried him to my bedroom put him in the room and closed the door. "Don't come out until you can freaking calm down!" Ummm, Cyndi, seriously check yourself before you wreck yourself.
The time was quickly approaching for the bus to come. He couldn't calm down. In a huge huff he came out of my room crying his eyes out and sat down to try to do the math. I am trying to be calm but he was putting answers down that were not even close to what the problems were. I'm still yelling. He's still crying. Two minutes until the bus arrives and he doesn't have shoes on. We're both a hot mess. I look like a crazy woman in pajamas and he is running out the door with his shoes half on and untied. It is at that point that I look over at my dog who is happily chewing on my brand new Cole Hahn shoe (*side note - I hardly ever buy any shoe that costs over $20 or that is not in the clearance bin because I am a cheap ass so of course he chose the pricey one to chew). Obviously this was completely my fault because in all the carrying on I did, I left the laundry room door open, and the dog went in there and found a nice treasure which happened to be my shoe! Now I'm really, really mad and acting really, really wacko. We run to the bus and get there just as it arrives. He climbs the bus on still a mess.
The bus drives away. I feel like the biggest asshole of all time. I could have avoided all of this. I could have just let him make his own breakfast with out berating what he was doing. I could have skipped working on math fluency facts knowing it would upset him or made it into a game rather than, "Sit down and do these facts now!" So he is at school probably having a crappy day and I am sitting getting my oil changed brewing about how mean I was.
I realize that having 4 kids is really hard. There are good days and there are really tough days where you think you have done more damage than good. Some days parenting my kids gets to me. I don't find their antics funny. I am easily frustrated that they fight every request I make of them. Some days I am a really shitty parent who has no patience and is flat out mean. I hate those days. That's where I am right now.
Hopefully I can redeem myself. I will apologize for my behavior when I pick him up from school. I will tell him that I love him and that I was in the wrong for being mean and angry. I will return the multitude of privileges/items I took away this morning as punishment for not doing his math, some of which include his 27 Nerf guns, xBox controllers, the TV remotes, and desserts and snacks for the rest of his life. I will tell him that he is a good kid and that I know math is hard but we will work through it calmly together next time. I will tell him that I was the one who needed a time out, not him. I will ask for forgiveness. In the meantime I will sit here and eat all these Milano cookies because I am pissed at myself.
My boys were telling me the other day about a phrase they learned at school about bullying and using mean words. I will probably muck it up as I try to tell it to you so bear with me. It was, "An angry word is like toothpaste. You can never put it back into the tube once you have squeezed it out." You can't take back angry words. You can clean up the mess, but the words will always leave the person a little broken.
I thought toothpaste was useful for cleaning all the Milano cookie bits out of my teeth, not to be an analogy for being a bully. I was wrong. It sucks to know that I left him a little broken. I am not looking for anyone to tell me that it was just a hard morning and that I am a good mom. I know for a fact I was not this morning. I am telling you this so you know that behind the silly posts, there are many days I still suck. A lot. I learn from each of those days. My lesson today was just more painful than than usual.
Off I go to try and clean up my toothpaste mess.
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